Asian Horror : Vengeful Spirits

The living spirit of Lady Rokujo attacks Lady Aoi, from The Tale of Genji.

The Illustration from manga adaptation version drawn by Waki Yamato in 1980

 The vengeful spirit, is one of the popular topic of the asian countries; such as China, Japan and Korea. In this review of Asian horror, I will describe about the one of the example of a vengeful woman from The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu in 11th century of Japan.

 The main character, Prince Genji is the love starved man that who lost his mother when he was little and have fallen love with Lady Fujitsubo, the young stepmother with low age gaps. She was really looking alike Genji's real mother and took care of Genji's childhood like older sister takes care of younger brother.

 Genji's first love was hopeless. And his wife, Lady Aoi was super cold and self-assertive woman who doesn't compatible with Genji. 
So, Genji was struggling with this relationship problem and cause he woos the women with his good appearance. Lady Rokujo was also one of the high ranking women who accepted him, but she was also getting forgotten.

Lady Rokujo could not express her true feelings as she wished without breaking court decorum. Instead, she repressed her feelings of jealousy, which began to transform her into a demon.

 One night, while sightseeing during the Hollyhock Festival, Lady Rokujo’s carriage collided with the carriage belonging to Genji’s rightful wife Lady Aoi. After already losing her place to Genji’s wife, Lady Rokujo discovered that Lady Aoi was pregnant with Genji’s child. The insult was too much. Her repressed jealousy escaped from her body and transformed into an living spirit, which haunted Lady Aoi every night. Eventually, this living was witnessed by Genji, who burnt a anti-spiritual incense for his wife to protect her against evil spirits.

 Lady Aoi gave birth to Genji’s son, but shortly afterwards became possessed by Lady Rokujo’s vengeful spirit. The living spirit was finally exorcised, but the possession took its tool of Lady Aoi and she passed away.

 Lady Rokujo had hoped to become Genji’s next wife, but she discovered that her own hair and clothes carried the odor of anti-spiritual incense. She realized that she had been responsible for the hauntings. Thinking that Genji could never love her after murdering his wife, Lady Rokujō left the capital and joined her daughter at the Ise Shrine.

Interview with the Vampire

The most of the vampires from subcultures are portrayed as captivated things that especially focused on the sexuality and mortal existences that caused a sensation of the fear through the bloodsucking.

Interview with the Vampire is the novel that shows the personal torment of certain existence, not a simple story of a vampire. Louis de Pointe du Lac, one of the main characters of this novel struggles over hundreds of years after he became a vampire. He couldn't find his own answer in mind about himself.

Louis thinks over and over; why does he exist, and the feeling of guilt, that he became an existence that can only live if he kills human even he was human once over.

In the past, while Lestat had no choice of becoming a vampire, Louis decided to become a vampire. However, there was a certain irony that when Lestat accepted a life of a vampire, Louis struggled over the hundreds of years unfortunately.

About Claudia, she turned into a vampire by Lestat after Louis found and drinks from her. Claudia has been growing up in a child's body for 70 years and became disillusioned with her body that doesn’t grow anymore. Also, she eager a body grown woman. As such, she gradually believes that Louis and she has been chained to Lestat and tried to murder him while she was struggling.

According to the reference of Anne Rice mentioned about Claudia, Rice’s dead daughter who died young of leukemia, became the motivation of Claudia. Rice made her daughter who wanted to grow up, into a fictional character called Claudia with mortal life to escape from the death.