Incest
The most likely place for the transfer or vampiric energy is in the family unit. Ernest Jones, in a paper called On the Nightmare, interprets the vampire story in terms of incest. Certainly the story lends itself to this interpretation.
Vampire lore suggests incest because the most startling aspect of the folkloric vampire is that he must first attack members of his own family. His victims are preordained to be those he loved most in life.
Modern versions do not always include this element, but it is almost universal in vampire folktales. And so we have the vampire father and mother who must first attack those they love.
Sometimes the vampire complex seems to live in the family like a curse, almost as if an evil Babylonian spirit has taken up residence. There seems to be a perpetuated complex that sucks away the promise of succeeding generations.
In Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, the brother and sister seem to consume-one another. Sex is never implied, but excessive spiritual love gone awry has come vampiric. The family is the place we are most susceptible to vampiric energy. Isolation from the community can make us especially vulnerable, and falling in love can also be very dangerous.
D.H.Lawrence wrote many stories on this theme, that falling in love is a battle for self or soul, but that when the process goes awry the lovers become vampires to each other, and one partner sucks the soul from the other. If one is weak, the other will devour them. If both are strong, both may survive.
Children can escape vampiric mothers or fathers. Men and women can escape vampire lovers. No one is required by life circumstances to become vampire.
