Week 10

How does Buffy deconstruct traditional literary notions of good and evil?


“”Evil” is often less fixed in these shows, with many characters demonstrating both decent and demonic traits and behaviours across episodes or sense. “Good” characters may develop in frightingly sinister ways; villainous ones may surprisingly reveal complex and even selfless motivations.” (Braum, 2000)

Buffy being the ‘vampire slayer’ fights against the evil forces and protects her community from them. Angel – a vampire who had a curse placed upon him by his family encounters Buffy and vows to help her fight her battles. Throughout season 2 Buffy is supported in all her battles with the help of Angel; however, when Buffy loses her virginity to Angel, this results in the restoring of Angel’s evil side – Angelus.

Believing that she was the cause of this transformation, Buffy knew that she had to do something about it. She had to become more violent and aggressive in order for her to reverse this error that occurred. Buffy’s quest to get revenge on the Angelus is totally understandable because of what Angelus was preparing to do – destroy all humankind – and also because he had killed a friend and teacher of Buffy. This revengeful action of Buffy’s is not to be seen as an act of evil doing.

In what ways is Buffy influenced by the romantic gothic tradition? Yet how does Buffy also provide a contemporary critique of this tradition?

“Buffy adopts and adapts many romantic Gothic conventions.” (Rose, 2002) In the text ‘Of creatures and creators’ by Anita Rose, Romantic conventions are compared in two texts –Buffy the vampire slayer and Frankenstein. Frankenstein is brought to life by its creator – Victor. Victor abandons him in fright because of what Frankenstein looked like. Frankenstein then left to figure out things alone. He eventually does learn a lot by observing the De Lacy family in which he reveals himself to them only to be rejected because of his appearance. He ends up killing his creator because of denied love and affection.

In Buffy, Adam kills his creator – Walsh at first sight because he already had access to “all the Initiatives high tech tools” and didn’t need her help. (Rose, 2002) Here we see that in Victor’s case, because he neglected his creation, it resulted in the death of his family and friends, then, himself. Whereas “in Buffy, the family unit represented by the Scooby Gang and Riley, is preserved.” (Rose 2002) In order for us to find out what our true nature is we must reach inside and learn. Buffy provides a contemporary critique of this tradition by understanding that “the most effective weapon to retain humanity and encourage creativity is the force of community”


Reference List

Braum, B. (2000) The X-files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The ambiguity of evil in supernatural representations. Retrieved 18 October, 2005 from: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0 412/is_2_28/ai_64688900

Rose, A (2002) Of creatures and creators: Buffy does Frankenstein, in R. Wilcox & D. Lavery (eds) Fighting the forces: what’s at stake in Buffy the vampire slayer. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.