I need help to finish my final draft of my essay.  The assignment is to write an essay with 5-to-7 pages and 1,250-1,750  words. It need to explain the popularity of zombies and vampires in twenty-fir

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Vampires vs. Zombies

Vampires and zombies are popular themes in recent horror novels and movies. Many young people are fascinated by the undead. There are even many imitations of zombies and vampires from TV shows and movies, ranging from makeup and clothing to the way they behave. A variety of computer and mobile games themed on undead creatures were born, and zompire culture gradually formed. In the same popular situation, vampires and zombies have similarities and differences. The same thing is that vampires and zombies both have what people dream of, while vampires and zombies have different storylines and themes.

The popularity of the vampire theme comes from the ideal of individualism. Editor Rodney Clapp wrote about it, “The vampire is an enduring figure in our culture because it plays into the myth of romantic love” (45). In many books about vampires, love is an eternal theme that runs through the plot. This is one of the reasons why vampire stories are so popular.

Among the modern films, the Twilight series is the most representative. The story begins when Bella falls in love with Edward, a vampire with a mysterious family background. The protagonist's love-hate entanglements touched the hearts of countless audiences, hidden in the family plot and race contest is the eternal love. Bella and Edward's undying love moved the audience. While the audience is admiring the love between the hero and the heroine, the audience also feels sorry for the werewolf's love for Bella, because his love is doomed to be unreciprocated. Love has always been the most popular subject for writers and audiences, whether it is novels or movies. From Shakespeare to modern novelists, love stories abound. A large number of female readers and audiences are the audience of such works. I think almost every woman has fantasized about romantic love. Most female viewers like to bring themselves into the story when watching a movie. Vampires in movies and TV series are young and handsome, mysterious, rich and have eternal life. These unique characteristics of vampires can exactly satisfy the majority of women's fantasy of the opposite sex. As a woman longing for love, she would not refuse such eternal love. The life of vampires is eternal, so is their love.

Unlike romantic vampires, zombie stories are full of blood and violence. Dunja Opatić said that, “Zombie films are used as a vehicle for addressing the tension between the hegemonic fear of the violent multitude in revolt and the counter-hegemonic liberatory potential of the rising masses” (Zombies in Revol). Resistance is an important theme in zombie movies and literature. Zombies are more of a fear to the living. People were fleeing from the zombie siege. Zombies have a completely different look and style from the elegant vampires. They were mangled, ragged and shambling. The Walking Dead is one of the most representative series of zombie dramas. Rick and a few other surviving humans hide from the inhuman zombies in the nearly flattened city. They faced many crises, the lack of food and water, the test of life and death, which makes human nature to the fullest. Zombies keep people awake, as opposed to addictive vampires. It is also easier to trigger the audience to think about human nature. At the same time, zombies are violent machines controlled by the ruling class, with invulnerable bodies. Although they all smell of decay, they have eternal life.

Vampires and zombies attract audiences with their unique charm, but they have similarities. They reflected human’s desire.

Vampires embody the human desire for money, youth, love and flesh. As Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan mentioned in their article, "The vampire transforms our vile, mortal selves into The gold of eternal youth, and instills in us something that every social construct seeks to quash: primal lust" (A23). A lot of what vampires give us is what we crave. What impressed me most was the "Interview With the Vampire" segment. When the vampire Louis turned the girl Claudia into a vampire, the girl's time stopped. Vampires Louis, Lestat and Claudia lead exciting lives. But they also pay a price. They can never live in the sun, like mice in the gutter. They feed on the blood of others, and for that they have to abandon their humanity. Still, many people envy the life of a vampire. Not seeing the sun and living on blood is nothing in front of money and immortality. People can't live without money. Can not survive, ideal and future are empty talk. These are the most instinctive desires of human beings.

Dehumanized zombies face only instinct and desire. As James Parker described in his article, zombies are immortal and spread like a virus(32). Zombies work to turn the living into their own kind and destroy everything. It looks like two human instincts: reproduction and predation. However, the story of the survivors who brave the zombies is the most desired heroism. Almost every boy has a dream of becoming a world-class hero. This seems contradictory. People both aspire to be predators like zombies and fantasize about being superheroes who can save the world. However, that has not stopped audiences from getting excited about watching zombie movies and TV shows. The bloodiness of zombies biting the living and the violence of heroes against zombies are enough to satisfy some people's thirst for violence.

Finally, supernatural phenomena like zombies and vampires and all kinds of weird stories and legends can satisfy the curiosity of the audience about the unknown phenomenon. Immortality, the resurrection after death, has been the secret of mankind for thousands of years. The human desire for immortality has never ceased. With the development of science and technology, more efforts have been made to invent some methods that can enable human beings to be reborn, such as freezing dead bodies and waiting for rebirth.

In conclusion, zombies and vampires are popular with audiences and readers for their unique characteristics and similarities. Audiences and readers love them for different reasons. Some are drawn to their magical experiences; some are driven by a desire for their abilities. Whatever the reason, vampires and zombies always get people's attention.

Work Cited

Clapp, Rodney. “Vampires among Us.” Christian Century, vol. 127, no. 3, Feb. 2010, p. 45. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=48002212&site=ehost-live score=site.

Opatić, Dunja. “Zombies in Revolt: The Violent Revolution of American Cinematic Monsters.” [Sic]: Časopis Za Književnost, Kulturu i Književno Prevođenje/A Journal of Literature, Culture and Literary Translation, vol. 2, no. 4, 2014. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2015831519&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Del Toro, Guillermo, and Chuck Hogan. "Why Vampires Never Die." The New York Times, 31 July 2009, p. A23(L). Gale In Context: Environmental Studies, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A204781325/GRNR?u=mont93762&sid=GRNR&xid=c09f733a. Accessed 3 Oct. 2019.

Parker, James. “Our Zombies, Ourselves: Why We Can’t Get the Undead off Our Brains.” Atlantic, vol. 307, no. 3, Apr. 2011, p. 32. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=59269400&site=ehost-live&scope=site.