Dracula Metaphysics. Exploring the Vampire Motif in Contemporary Women’s Fiction

Abstract

Three women writers, Elisabeth Kostova, Doina Ruști, and Ruxandra Ivăncescu chose the vampire motif as the core of their historiographical metafiction. The principle of verisimilitude that dominates their prose writing in different percentages, transforms the narrative strategy into an initiation journey for interpreting various traces left behind by a mysterious character. They are blending into their prose writing historic archival facts, popular knowledge embedded in folktales and ballads, as well as important artifacts. As requested by the literary convention, their vampire becomes a time traveler, interested in maintaining power and offering protection to a few ones, a more intellectual and at times a good-natured character, stripped of his sensuality.