Class Conflict: The Living and the Undead

As Marx and Engels write in “The Manifesto of the Communist Party” (Reference Marx, Engels and Tucker1848), “The history of hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman” (473–74). Certainly, the bifurcation of society into oppressor and oppressed is a hallmark of Marxist thought. Marx (1844/Reference Marx and Tucker1978) argued that “the whole of society must fall apart into the two classes—the property-owners and the propertyless workers” (70), locked into an exploitative relationship that inevitably breeds conflict.

To illustrate this fundamental division of society into bourgeoisie and proletariat in the classroom, I compare the distinction between vampire and human that defines so much of the vampire canon. “In the figure of Count Dracula,” Hatlen (Reference Hatlen and Carter1988) argues, “Stoker created an image of ‘otherness’” (129)—not just physically, but also culturally and socially. Vampire fiction typically draws a clear line of separation between the living and the undead, creating a social demarcation between vampire and victim. Bill Compton, the vampire lead in HBO's True Blood series, gives voice to this division when he matter-of-factly declares to his human paramour, “I am not human, Sookie. I am vampire” (“Burning House of Love,” 1.7). Moreover, as Bill explains to Sookie in an earlier episode, “We don't have human values like you” (“Strange Love,” 1.1). In fact, True Blood, the Twilight series, and other contemporary works of vampire fiction increasingly depict entire clan-based vampire societies with their own laws and social norms that exist outside mainstream human society.

As discussed earlier, patterns of exploitation and inevitable conflict define the relationship between Marx's “dead labor” (capital) and “living labor” (the working class). Motivated solely by profit, factory owners emerge as a form of economic vampires, improving their bottom line through longer hours, lower wages, and poorer working conditions. Capitalists are, in effect, draining away the value of their workers' labor to enrich themselves—just as supernatural vampires drains their victims' life force to grow stronger.

The parallels with vampire fiction are evident. As Shaviro (Reference Shaviro2002) notes, “The vampire grows, not through any productive activity of its own, but by expropriating a surplus generated by the living” (282). Sims (Reference Sims and Sims2010) concurs: “For vampires, the cost of staying alive, or at least staying not quite dead, is the price of lives other than their own—as if, when they have exhausted their own allotted wealth, they can steal someone else's to keep the creditor at bay” (6). According to Forry (Reference Forry, Greene and Mohammad2006), “Vampires are the ultimate affirmation of individualism, escaping from human moral obligation, caring only for themselves, and free from regret or remorse for their actions” (237). Finally, Moretti (Reference Moretti and Byron1999) draws the following comparison between the vampire and the capitalist:

As Count Dracula states in the 2004 film Van Helsing, “I'm at war with the world and every living soul in it!” In a similar vein, Marx (1847a/Reference Marx and Tucker1978) defines the stakes in the conflict between the bourgeoisie and proletariat as “combat or death: bloody struggle or extinction” (219). The vampire metaphor, in turn, has the potential to drive home the primacy of class conflict to students encountering Marxist thought for the first time.

Alienation: The Exsanguination of the Working Class

Questions about what it means to be human are central in vampire fiction, dating back to Stoker's Dracula and running through the present in works like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is also an important concern in Marx's work. As a staunch materialist, he centers his theory of human nature on the individual's labor and productive activity. For instance, Marx argues in “Wage Labour and Capital” (1847) that labor “is the worker's own life-activity, the manifestation of his own life” (204). Singer (Reference Singer2000) elaborates that “labor in the sense of free productive activity is the essence of human life. Whatever is produced in this way—a statue, a house, or a piece of cloth—is therefore the essence of human life made into a physical object” (35–36). According to Marx, our ability to create freely and enjoy the products of that labor defines us as human beings and gives meaning to our lives.

Marx argues, however, that the relationship between workers and the value of their labor fundamentally changes under capitalist modes of production. When a worker sells the surplus value of his labor to a factory owner in exchange for wages paid, Marx calls it “a sacrifice of his life” (1847b/Reference Marx and Tucker1978, 204). This process alienates humans from their own nature, and it is the factory owner who ultimately accumulates profit from the worker's labor. “Estranged from the material embodiment of their labor,” Latham (Reference Latham2002) observes, “workers find themselves integrated into the factory system as cogs in the productive apparatus their own energies have spawned” (3). The worker is reduced to little more than the next stop on the assembly line, a monotonous process that results in a “total loss of humanity” according to Marx (1844/Reference Marx and Tucker1978, 64). “As a result, therefore,” Marx continues, “man … no longer feels himself to be freely active in any but his animal functions—eating, drinking, procreating … and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal” (74). In turn, alienation from the product of his labor “enforces on the laborer abstinence from all life's enjoyments” (Marx 1867/Reference Marx and McLellan2008, 333). Drained of his human spark, a worker's life loses all meaning. At the risk of mixing monster movie metaphors, the “loss of self” (Marx 1844/Reference Marx and Tucker1978, 74) that results from capitalist production transforms the worker into little more than a zombie—a slave to the capitalist.

Whereas Marx's theory of alienation is a sophisticated argument, the vampire metaphor once again proves itself quite useful as a way to make the concept accessible to an undergraduate audience. In this context, compare the Marxist concept of alienation with the loss of humanity suffered by victims of the vampire's bite. Look no further than Lucy Westenra, the first character to suffer the Count's fangs in Stoker's Dracula, to find the archetypal victim of the vampire. Visiting her at night, Count Dracula slowly drains Lucy's blood and leaves her anemic and bedridden. Once vivacious, Lucy becomes pale, listless, and visibly weakened. “She was hardly able to turn her head,” the character of Dr. Seward writes in his journal, “and the little nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good” (Stoker 1897/Reference Stoker1973, 143). The same character later notes, “Presently she woke, and I gave her food, as Van Helsing has prescribed. She took but a little, and that languidly. There did not seem to be with her now the unconscious struggle for life and strength that had hitherto marked her illness” (Stoker Reference Stoker1897, 149). Just as Marx's view of alienation suggests that capitalism drains the worker of his humanity and separates him from all life's enjoyments, so too does the vampire's bite drain Lucy of her will to live and eventually transform her into the walking dead.Footnote ⁶

False Consciousness: Under the Vampire's Spell

When we discuss the Marxist perspective on the exploitation and alienation of the working class, students often pose a familiar question: why don't the workers just rise up? Following through with the vampire motif, we compare the failure of the working class to mobilize against the bourgeoisie with the victims who passively surrender to Dracula's attacks. The vampire has seduced his victims and placed them under his spell. In much the same way, Marx argues that capitalism casts its own spell over the working class.

Marx attributes the failure of the working class to rise up against its oppressors to a lack of class consciousness—that is, a collective unawareness concerning social and economic standing among the workers. In fact, engendering a stronger sense of class consciousness among European workers is the raison d'être behind Marx and Engel's “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” However, the workers are distracted from the realities of economic exploitation (the “base” in Marxist terminology) by politics, ideology, culture, religion, and the commodities that capitalism produces (all parts of society's “superstructure”). For example, Marx's oft-quoted dictum that religion is “the opiate of the people” (Reference Marx and Tucker1843, 54) alludes to vague promises of future rewards in the afterlife in exchange for enduring earthly hardships in the present. Similarly, Marx (1867/Reference Marx and McLellan2008) argues that the social value ascribed to the wages paid and the goods produced under capitalism creates “commodity fetishism” that further diverts the worker's attention from the harsh realities of exploitation. Political ideologies are yet another distraction; as Marx and Engels (Reference Marx and Engels1846) note, “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” These social, cultural, and political aspects of the bourgeoisie-dominated superstructure create a false consciousness that distracts workers from the economic base and, ultimately, their own best interests. The social order produced by capitalism is designed to immobilize the worker long enough for the factory owner to effectively drain him dry.

Similarly, the title character in Blade (1998) describes the base and superstructure that define the film's setting when he declares, “You better wake up. The world you live in is just a sugar-coated topping. There is another world beneath it—the real world.” Seduction is arguably the most potent talent in the vampire's repertoire, dating back at least as far as Count Dracula's “hypnotic” eyes and the “fascination” they evoke in Lucy. For instance, Hood (Reference Hood and Carter1988) refers to Dracula's powers of enticement, “in which he inflames the irrational desires of his world-be converts for those corrupt but intoxicating powers and pleasures to which he has access” (216). While Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Spike dismisses Dracula's hypnotic powers as “nothing but showy Gypsy stuff,” the Count nevertheless succeeds in placing the formidable Buffy under his thrall, however briefly (“Buffy vs. Dracula,” 5.1). Meanwhile, in the True Blood universe, the vampiric ability to mesmerize and mentally control human beings is known as “glamouring.” After all, as True Blood's Bill observes, “humans are shockingly susceptible to just about every form of thought manipulation” (“I Don't Wanna Know,” 1.10).

Turning to the Twilight series, Edward Cullen does not rely on any supernatural vampiric powers to enthrall his prey. Rather, he does this through old-fashioned emotional and physical attraction. As Bella Swan, the target of Edward's affection, puts it, “I wasn't interesting. And he was. Interesting … and brilliant … and mysterious … and perfect … and beautiful … and possibly able to lift full-sized vans with one hand” (Meyer Reference Meyer2005, 79). Bella goes on to expound, “About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him—and I didn't know how potent that part might be—that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him” (195). Meanwhile, Edward is clearly cognizant of his charm, declaring to Bella, “I'm the world's best predator, aren't I? Everything about me invites you in—my voice, my face, even my smell. As if I need any of that!” (79). In summary, the vampire—whether through psychic powers or sheer physical beauty—creates its own sense of false consciousness in humans to more easily feast on their blood. Once again, the parallels with Marx's critique of capitalism are evident.

As the father of communism, where does Karl Marx fit into the vampire narrative? We might equate Marx with Stoker's Professor Abraham Van Helsing—a savvy intellectual endeavoring to warn those around him that a vampire is on the loose. After all, as Van Helsing cautions in Dracula (1931), “The strength of the vampire is that people will not believe in him.” When Marx and Engels urge workers of the world to unite in The Communist Manifesto, they are not simply urging the proletariat to join a labor union. Instead, they are calling on the working class to stop acting like Lucy, the Count's passive victim in Dracula, and start acting like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. With their very humanity on the line, Marx and Engels urge workers to wake up from the vampire's spell and drive a stake through the heart of capitalism, laying it to rest once and for all.