Guilt and Secrecy

While I loved reading such a contemporary novel, The Gathering was one of my least favorites this semester. However, for me, it was the biggest learning experience. Since Castle Rackrent we've explored and questioned what it means to be "Irish" and what makes these characters/authors/novels any sort of authority on Ireland/Irish Studies. Themes and characteristics (for lack of a better term) I really feel came full circle in this novel. Not to put culture in a box, but now when I think of Ireland and her people I think turmoil, guilt, unpredictability, and the search for Identity.
The passage suggested for analysis by Colleen states "This is what shame does. This is the anatomy and mechanism of a family-a whole fucking country-drowning in shame." To really understand how shame affects the characters in The Gathering, I think you have to dig a little deeper. A little further in the book, two passages especially, stuck out to me as a way to explain Veronica's frustrations over how family works, and what drives us.
1. "The past is not a happy place. And the pain of it belongs to her more than it does to me, I think. Who am I to claim it for my own? My poor mother had twelve children. She could not stop giving birth to the future. Over and over. Twelve futures. More. Maybe she liked having all those babies. Maybe she had more past than most people, to wipe clear." (233)
2. "I know what I have to do- even though it is too late for the truth, I will tell the truth. I will get hold of Ernest and tell him what happened to Liam in Broadstone, and I will ask him to break this very old news to the rest of the family (but don't tell Mammy!) because I can not do it myself, I do not have the arguments for it. I just couldn't face Bea's disapproval, or Ita's dank sorrow, or Ivor, crisply saying, 'How come you guys had all the fun?' God, I hate my family, these people I never chose to love, but love all the same." (259)

What I get from these two passages, and the aboved mention quote from page 168 is that sense of guilt. The entire novel she struggles with whether or not the memory happened and then once she personally comes to terms with it she's feels more guilt. If only she had told someone, If only she had never backed out of the "good room", If only she could have saved Liam from drink and suicide. Amongst all those "what ifs" she also had a sense that it wasn't her place. Secrets and guilt (as we saw in the novel) traced back to the 1930s (with the discovery of the tax books and letters from L. Nugent) and no matter how bad the secret or situation, someone always had it worse. Veronica didn't want the responsibilty of having to answer to anyone once she was ready to share what happened to Liam all those years ago.

This is a reoccuring theme through much of the texts we read this semester. I think what we've been calling Catholic Guilt could easily be relabeled Irish Guilt, or Human Guilt. While I don't have any specific passages to recall from the previous novel I really felt that The Gathering paralleled Castle Rackrant and Breakfast on Pluto. If you remember Rackrent like I do, the servant character reminds me a bit of Nugent (the manipulation, the power-even if we don't know it at first) and the secrets of Gathering are like the family secrets of Rackrent. I think what Pluto and Gathering have in common are the shaded memories/fantasies. The langauge and narrative are much the same- family turmoil, secrecy, shame and this heightened sense of an almost truth.

How romantically tragic....

The Concept of Language of the Sense of Self and Other

Breakfast On Pluto

I love talking about nothing, it's the only thing I know anything about....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfVM3p_6tQM

So, the deadline for this novel approached quicker than I realized. Silly, yes, since our deadlines are the same everyweek. I'm posting because, well, we have to, but I will admit I'm no where close the finish. I knew I wasn't going to be able to finish Breakfast On Pluto so I rented the movie. Well, when Pussy informs Charlie that s/he intends to move to London in search of Mammy, she asks him how he's going to live and he says something along the lines of "Saint Anthony of course." That sparks a conversation between my husband and I about who Saint Anthony is and what exactly he's the patron saint of. If you don't know (cause I didn't) he's the patron saint of lost souls, travellers, etc. I thought that awesome entitlement belonged to Saint Christopher. So I completely forgot about the book and the movie, and started my own little quest for knowledge on the saints.

Prior to the canonization of saints in 1969, the Catholic church granted sainthood to martyrs and characters of legends. Saint Christopher is actually not a saint at all. While recognized in some regions and parishes as a saint, he was never canonized into the some 10,000 allotted spots. That random google search pulled lead to an even more fascinating discovery (at least for my husband and I.) Did you know Buddha was a saint? BUDDHA?!?! Not to get too personal for those not interested, but I'm an A/G Christian and my husband is a Buddhist (Shambala tradition) and we love all things religion and spiritual. And to find something linking our belief systems was kind of magical. I've been alllllllllllll over the web tonight

While I'm sure there is information to refute this somewhere, I read in the Catholic Encyclopedia and a few other theology websites about how the story of St. Josaphat (whose feast day is August 26 in the Greek Orthodox Church) is actually Buddha. What began as an oral tradition was recorded into the Jakata Tales. Throughout the centuries the stories spread and were translated or adapted to reflect the region, culture, or religion of the people. Around 700 A.D. St. John of Damascus "chrisitianized" the story of Barlaam and Josaphat with the help of an Arabian king. The story of Josaphat's journey to Christianity parallels the story of Prince Siddhartha's path to enlightenment. Accounts dating back to the 1600s show Catholic documentation of the acknowledgement of St. Josaphat or, rather, St. Buddha.

Most of this info must be credited to www.blogcritics.org/culture/article/how-the-buddha-became-a-catholic/ and The Catholic Encyclopedia online.

As for my creative project---
I will be writting a paper (while I consider myself crafty, I don't consider myself creative or computer savvy and the idea of an online creative project freaks me out.) I would like to do a continuation of my online artifact. I initially explored the idea of disease outbreaks in Ireland as metaphor for British imperalism, and would like to see where I can take that topic. I would talk about medical breakthroughs and advances, as well as lack of progress at the turn of the century- how communities were forgotten or essentially wiped out due to disease and death. I'd also like to research the link to sanitation and living conditions of most Irish peasants.

childhood & the search for ~Identity~

"It is human to have a long childhood; it is civilized to have an even larger childhood. Long childhood makes a technical and mental virtuoso out of man, but it also leaves a life-long residue of emotional immaturity in him." -Erik Homburger Erikson



My blog last week touched on the confusion associated with growing up. I posed the question "At what age are we children?" and "At what age are we adults?" The discussion that followed inspired me to go in a differnt direction with this week's blog. Colleen suggested that the transition into adulthood is paralleled by our understanding of lanaguage. Specifically, "It seems to me that the initiation into adulthood is really connected to an initiation into the world of language or the world of ideas, not necessarily the 'thing' itself. It's interesting to me that Stephen doesn't 'see' the real world until he learns words, which are essentially 'symbols'--stand-ins for the actual thing (i.e. a cat is NOT the letters c-a-t). Jacques Lacan calls this world of language symbolic."

That quote, and the article Colleen reference made me start to think about the different perspectives of growing up- that of children, adults, psychologists, religions, etc. While I liked the connection between language and sense of self within the world, I was a tad more curious in the religious rites of youth, specifically those of a Christian or Catholic faith, because I was curious if there was a connection between the church's idea of growing into adulthood and our main character, Stephen. I stumbled across the website http://www.slatemaster.com/encyclopedia/Coming-of-age and how the sacraments in Catholicism center around the concept of "age of accountability" which is a basic understanding of right and wrong. While I was able to appreciate this view, and, yes, it did help me to understand the sacraments, I find accountability doesn't translate into adulthood. Understanding yes and no, or right from wrong is an important milestone on the pathway of growing up, but is a far cry from understanding why it is right or wrong. I think we observed that in Stephen; he knew when something was right or wrong because his parents and faith told him so. It was not until his teenage years that he began to question "why", which according to sociopsycholoist Erik Erickson is a developmental mark we hit by age 6. Maybe this is why the Catholic church believes age 7 is the age of accountability?

In most of my external reading I kept coming across the term "identity" and how it is a child's establishment of thier identity that is a true characteristic of that "initiation into adulthood." While I think "identity" is a term that we could develop a whole class around, and is a label I have personal issue with, for the sake of my blog I'm going to use it as accepted theory/label. The most concise (and easily understandable) article I found on indenity can be located at: http://social.jrank.org/pages/322/Identity-Development.html
While I don't know if I agree with all the psycho-babble I was very fascinated in the "Identity Statuses" established by James Marcia, mostly because to read the definition of each identity status is like reading a recap on a portion of Stephen's journey to adulthood.

Four Identity Statuses are:
1. Identity Diffusion: not aware of ability to make choices, or declines to do so
2. Identity Foreclosed: when a commitment is made without exploring the alternatives
3. Identity Moratorium: ready to make a choice and explore alternatives, but yet to commit
4. Identity Achievement: occurs once person has made it through the crisis of indecision and commits to a aspect or identity to define themselves

Portrait of the Artist could without a doubt be divided into those identity statuses. For much of Stephen's life (or at least what's covered in the book) Stephen is scared, feaful, and indifferent. He does what he's told, even after started to question the validity of the things around him (diffusion). His foreclosed state is evident in the dialogue with Cranly and his loyalty to a religion he doesn't believe in. Stephen at this point hasn't questioned his religion, but instead has decided he doesn't believe in it even if he doesn't explain why. Additionally his moratorium status is incorportated throughout the book- every time he has a run in with a female or prostitute. His last identity status, which is achievement I think we see in his journal entries. The two in particular that define a moment or belief are March 24 and April 26.

March 24: "Begin with a discussion with my mother. Subject: B.V.M. Handicapped by my sex and youth. To escape held up relation between Jesus and Papa against those between Mary and her son. Said relgion was not a lying-in hospital. Mother indulgent. Said I have a queer mind and have read too-much. Not true. Have read little and understood less. Then she said I would come back to faith because I had a restless mind. This means to leave church by backdoor of sex and reenter through the skylight of repentance. Cannot repent" (182).

This discussion between Stephen and his mother displays such and honesty and personal conviction which is crucial to developing one's own identity. Stephen explored his options and alternatives. He also lived by the rules without question. Somewhere inbetween he found himself, even if he doesn't fully understand how.

Here's to growing up!
-drea

Childhood Can Be So Confusing...

Did anyone else experience such an emotional experience with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? While I think most of us can agree this semi-autobiographical story was a gripping coming of age story, the religious convictions experienced by Stephen was something that spoke volumes for me. What I enjoyed most about this book is an element we discussed in our first week of blogs (well in my blog anyway)- the ability of a story to change with each read. Also, the vast amount of teen agnst that can be related to- sexual discomfort, first love, growing up too soon or not soon enough, parental disconnect makes it a novel for any era. I'm not too old to forget the confusion and fustrations of young adulthood and something about Young Artist feels very personal to me.

Stephen Dedalus is isolated, angry, bitter, confused,torturted. We start Portrait when he is a child, but because he is the oldest of 10 or so children almost immediately there is an unspoken expectation that he grow up faster. His father and uncle include him in grown-up conversation, and grown-up activity as while it's language Stephen doesn't understand, he knows that someday it's going to be significant. In the second chapter we're told of such an occasion, "Trudging along the road or standing in some grimy wayside public house his elders spoke constantly of the subjects nerer their hearts, of Irish politics, of Munster and of the legends of their own family, to all of which Stephen lent an avid ear. Words which he did not understand he said over and over to himself til he had learnt them by heart and through them he had glimpses of the real world about him. The hour when he too would take part in the life of that world seemed drawing near and in secret he began to make ready for the great part which he felt awaited him the nature of which he only dimly apprehended" (42-43).

The last sentence especially (the last hour...) really touched at that cusp between child and young adult. We can't wait to grow up! Make our own decisions, have our own opinions and ability to voice those opinions, but we neverly really know when that moment is. At what point are we children? And at what point have we embraced adulthood? Is there something, some right of passage that needs to take place?

Part of the growing and maturing process is as children we can't wait to grow up, but then as adults we long for the carefree joys of childhood, forgetting all together that childhood is scary and confusing with it's own set of unexplained game rules. What I mean by that is as children we're taught right from wrong, societal expectations, morals and values of our family. We never fully know why something is right or wrong, just that it is. We don't know who makes the rules or why there are even rules, just "because". Stephen's religious convictions towards the end of the novel are a perfect example of that. While he has stopped believing in his parent's religion, he is still the first one to defend it, because deep down there is still some kind of conviction. He had to come full circle with it on his own, experiencing extreme faith and ritualism to a complete loss of faith. Even after reaching his own conclusions he still had that "because" attitude, as we see in the dialogue between Stephen and Cranly on pages 174-181. I can't quote that many pages on here but the few lines that stuck out to me were-
"Do you believe in the eucharist?"
"I do not."
"Do you disbelieve then?"
"I nether believe in it nor disbelieve in it."
"It is a curious thing, do you know how your mind is supersaturated with the religion in which you say you disbelieve. Did you believe in it when you were at school? I bet you did."
"I did."
"And were you happier then? Happier than you are now, for intance?"
"I mean that I was not myself as I am now, as I had to become."

and here
"Did the idea ever occur to you that Jesus was not what he pretended to be?... I mean, did the idea ever occur to you that was himself a conscious hypocrite, what he called the jews of his time, a white sepulchre? Or, to put it more plainly, that he was a blackguard?"
"The idea never occured to me, but I am curious to know are you trying to make a convert out of me or a pervert of yourself?"
"And why were you shocked if you feel sure that our religion is flase and that Jesus was not the son of God?"
"I'm not at all sure of it. He is more like a son of God than a son of Mary."... "I fear more than the chemical action which would be set up in my soul by a flase homage to a symbol behind which are massed twenty centuries of authority and veneration."

Ultimately Stephen experiences a moment when his soul is free and for once feels at peace with himself. While he took an unpopular road by renoucning his faith, the despair, isolation, and disconnect between body and soul slowly melts away. He doesn't have all the answers, but is finally starting to be comfortable in his own skin.

Online Artifact: Carmilla as Commentary of the Consumption

Andrea Dunn

English 263

Booker

Online Artifact: Carmilla

Joseph Sheriden Le Fanu’s vampire classic, Carmilla, was published in 1872 at the height of an epidemic. That epidemic was Consumption, later renamed Tuberculosis (TB). By the early 1900s, TB had claimed the lives of more than 40% of the population in major European cities. Dictionary definitions of consumption can be traced back to the 1300s, although the disease has now been traced to 3000 BC. In his article “Scientists diagnose first case of tuberculosis in Iron Age man,” Steve Connor, Science Editor of The Independent, explains the significance of this find:

“DNA tests confirmed the presence of the TB microbe in the man’s spinal bones… Until now the earliest case of TB in Britain was in a skeleton dating from the 1^st century. The latest find proves the disease had been in Britain long before the Roman crossed from Gaul. ‘It indicates that even in a remote rural settlement the disease was here centuries before the Roman Conquest,’ says Simon Mays, a specialist in human skeletal remains at English Heritage” (The Independent).

The significance of this find, debunks all previous beliefs about the origins and transference of TB from animal to human. It also highlights that TB was a disease that affected all nations regardless of population or development. It was believed that TB originated in cattle and only affected developed cities like London and Paris. In the article “A Short Account of Tuberculosis in Ireland 1850-1990,” A. Barr discusses the effect TB had on Ireland. He discusses statistics, and more importantly the lack of documentation and census taking in Ireland (under British rule mind you). Barr suggests that TB hit Ireland harder than almost any other European country is the surrounding area but that political authorities were unmotivated to take national measures against the disease. Barr explains “until 1900 little action was taken by the State to combat the disease.” Additionally, he equates living conditions in Ireland with TB outbreaks,

“Many attempts have been made to explain the excessive tuberculosis mortality to which Ireland is subject, but perhaps no single factor contributed so much to this cause as the appalling conditions under which the Irish peasants lived…. In all there were 1,328,839 inhabited houses of which 77 percent were mud cabins having only one room” (58).

According to Susan Sontag, author of Illness as metaphor: and, AIDS and its metaphors, TB is a disease of the lungs, with very extreme symptoms:

“TB is understood as a disease of extreme contrasts: white pallor and red flush, hyperactivity alternating with languidness. The spasmodic course of the disease is illustrated by what is thought of as the prototypical TB symptom, coughing. The sufferer is wacked by coughs, then sinks back, recovers breath, breathes normally, and then coughs again” (11).

While I don’t want to fill up my blog with her explanations of how TB manifests itself, I would highly recommend going to

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZZ806Vanu3IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=illness+as+metaphor+and+aids+and+its+metaphors&source=bl&ots=G8DbTIv5ZM&sig=R8DjQVTGOlkXhAawll6jQZNz6jk&hl=en&ei=f_CNS9XIHt338Qav_9nlDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false

and reading pages 11 through 14.

I do, however want to include one more thought shared by Sontag on page 13, “TB was-still is- thought to produce spells of euphoria, increased appetite, exacerbated sexual desire… Having TB was imagined to be an aphrodisiac, and to confer extraordinary powers of seduction.” Sontag’s suggestion of “hyperactivity alternating with languidness”, as well as her conclusion about the sexualization of the disease are two behaviors we see over and over again in Carmilla, played out in the two female characters Laura and Mircalla/Carmilla.

Beginning in the second chapter of Carmilla, people already begin to fall prey to disease and soon after perish. The first death in the area readers become aware of is Mademoiselle Rheinfeldt (66). On the following page, Laura reads a letter written by General Rheinfeldt, in which he writes, “Before then I had no idea of her danger. I have lost her, and now learn all, too late. (…) The fiend who betrayed our infatuated hospitality has done it all. (…) I thank God my child died without a suspicion of the cause of her sufferings. I devote my remaining days to tracking and extinguishing a monster” (67-68).

The reader does not know the significance or meaning of this letter upon the first read through of Carmilla. We know now the “monster” was in fact the vampire Mircalla and that Mademoiselle’s symptoms leading up to death were actually symptoms of TB. In various parts through Carmilla, we observe symptoms of illness that are caused by a vampire, and that the vampire in the story is really consumption.

Last week I referenced the book Blood Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture, by Joan Gordon and Veronica Hollinger. If you google “vampire as metaphor for tuberculosis” the majority of essays, critiques, and reviews will credit a very specific passage from Blood Read that compares symptoms of disease with visuals we normally associate with vampires;

“Our next group of essays reads the vampire as a metaphor for consumption. In the nineteenth century, to look back again, the vampire functioned as a natural metaphor for the symptoms of tuberculosis: consider its associations with wasting, with paleness, with the flow of blood from the mouth, night restlessness, alternate burning and chills, even with the victim’s rumored sexual energy” (6).

Blood Read is essentially a collection of essays, and one essay of fascination is “My Vampire, My Friend: The Intimacy Dracula Destroyed, “ by Nina Auerbach. It’s a fascinating read on the sexual power and achievement “Carmilla” had by making the vampire a woman instead of a man. (If only I had picked that for my online artifact!)

What’s fascinating about Carmilla is that not only do those in close proximity to Mircalla begin to experience the fear, dread, and physical aliments of being affected by a vampire, but also Mircalla herself has the symptoms associated with TB.

An example of Mircalla/TB:

1. SEXUALà “ ‘In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die-die, sweetly die- into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.’ And when she had spoken such a rhapsody she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek” (107).

2. PHSYICALà “She used to come down very late, generally not until one o’clock, she would then take a cup of chocolate, but eat nothing; we then went out for a walk, which was a mere saunter, and she seemed, almost immediately, exhausted, and either returned to the schloss or sat on one of the benches (…) this was a bodily languor in which her mind did not sympathise” (112). And again on page 137, “ ‘There is nothing ever wrong with me, but a little weakness. People say I am languid; I am incapable of exertion; I can scarcely walk as far as a child of three years old; and every now and then the little strength I have falters, and I become as you have just seen me, But after all I am very easily set up again; in a moment I am perfectly myself’’ (137).

In each of these passages Mircalla has behaviors and characteristics that Sontag claims are classic folklore representations of TB, including exhaustion, weak lungs, the coming and going of symptoms, polarizing sexual energy, and of course the act of passing on TB, or in the case of Carmilla, vampire induced illness! This is demonstrated a little further in the reading, “It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable state. My sufferings had, during the last week, told upon my appearance. I had grown pale, my eyes were dilated and darkened underneath, and the languor which I had long felt began to display itself in my countenance” (160).

Folklore often deals with mysterious and supernatural ways of explaining the unknown. Depending on the culture and time, just about any major event, whether social, economic, or political has been represented in some way. For Carmilla, the vampire is that representation.

WORKS CITED

Gordon, Joan, and Veronica Hollinger. Blood Read: the Vampire as Metaphor in

Contemporary Culture. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania, 1997. Print.

llness as Metaphor ; And, AIDS and Its Metaphors. Doubleday. Web. 2 Mar. 2010.

.

Barr, A. "A Short Account of Tuberculosis in Ireland 1850-1900." Irish Journal of

Medical Science 21.2 (1956): 58-67. SpringerLink. 21 Oct. 2008. Web. 2 Mar.

2010. .

Le, Fanu Joseph Sheridan. In a Glass Darkly. [S.l.: S.n.], 1977. Print.

Scientists Diagnose First Case of Tuberculosis Is Iron Age Man 12 Dec. 2002. The

Independent. Web. 3 Mar. 2010. .

What's with the Vampire Fever?

Forgive the title of my blog, but I'm feeling uninspired. I became very engrossed in Carmilla, and found myself developing attachments for some of its characters. This definitely caught me by surprise, because I have never understood the appeal of gothic novels (maybe that's because in high school I was forced to read Nathaniel Hawthorne, Poe, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman) and most certainly have never understood the appeal of vampires. The only Anne Rice I'm familiar with is her Sleeping Beauty series, I have never seen or read Dracula, and somehow, thankfully, I have avoided the Twilight craze. But I might be ready to rethink all that.

This week I had to look to other students blogs as well as do some external research because while I really enjoyed the story, and picked up on the more than obvious sexuality, I didn't really connect it to a meaning or representation or metaphor pertaining to Irish culture. Thankfully Colleen posted those guidance terms/ideas and it led me to some interesting websites. I'll list some of them for you-

http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/folklore/vampire-folklore.html

http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/history/events/dates/emanc.shtm

http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/history/events/dates/emanc2.shtm

Whether or not those websites qualify as "scholarly" has yet to be determined... Additionally, I referred to the book Blood Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture edited by Joan Gordon and Veronica Hollinger.

For me, Carmilla was a love story for the soul, and not at all "lesbian". The connection that Laura and Carmilla experienced was physical, mental, emotional, other worldly. I don't like to use the idea of Lesbian undertones, because I think there's a certain attitude associated with such a label, and clearly the love and desire was so animalistic and pure that it can't be defined by a label. Gothic literature often touches of powerfully dramatic feelings and emotion, and how delicious that Carmilla could provide so much classic text!

The first time we're introduced to the uncontrollable attraction is when Carmilla and Laura share their dreams from years ago, confirming that somehow they are kindred spirits meant to be.

" 'I wonder whether you feel as strangely drawn towards me as I do you; I have never had a friend-shall I find one now?'....... Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably towards the beautiful stranger. I did feel, as she said, 'drawn towards her,' but there was also something of repulsion. In this ambiguous feeling, however, the sense of attraction immensely prevailed. She interested and won me; she was so beautiful and so indescribably engaging" (Ch. 3).

In a matter of days their connection turns into a kind of unbreakable enslavement, and the mental intimacy they share starts to manifest in holding hands, kissing, and head laying.

"She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear,'Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die-die, sweetly die- into mine.'..... And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek" (Ch. 4).

I find that passage, probably the most poetic and best description of the binary forces of their soulful connection. Laura is falling more and more in love, Carmilla seems to be feeding off that connection.

In doing independent research I did find some information about the vampire being metaphor for tuberculosis, and that made total sense to me. I read somewhere that TB claimed up to 30% of the population in major cities, like Paris, in the 1800s. Since it's easier to blame others for illness, and families not wanting to be stigmatized as being associated with someone with consumption (much like GRID/AIDS in the 80s), I guess I could understand why it was easier to explain a vampire lurking in the night waiting to fester on women and children. :)