Angel and the Boeotian Phenomenon

 INTRODUCTION: The ancient Boeotian (named after the region of Greece where Thebes is located) or Oedipal Motif, describes the sexual relationship between an often outwardly stoic warrior young man/son, and an often beautiful, powerful woman who may be his mother, (or at least have motherly qualities in his regard). This has been a great work of literature in many forms at last since the time of ancient Greece. This can be seen most recently, in the Vampire television series, “Angel”. Parallels between Angel, and other forms of the genre are many including many elements of the plot line, (Mother and Son yet also lovers), (and the love/hate nature of there relationship).  

BODY: The relationship between Angel and “Darla” the Vampire who made him into such (sired him, the motherhood element again), has a number of parallels, with other forms of the genre. The relationship is one of both, mother and son, but also that of lovers, (contrast, the core of the genre).  The element of tragic love is also present, (which is present in all forms of the genre). And the Bipolar nature of their relationship shows that they both love and hate each other, (this is present in many other forms of the motif).

CONCLUSION: Therefore armed with these and other parallels, this essay will set out to prove that “Angel” is a part of this great and Romantic genre of literature, with its themes of Contrast, Passion, Love, Hate, Martyrdom, Good and Evil, and Bipolarism. 

Angel obviously has a number of parallels with other forms of this genre. However, it also takes elements from a number of other sources, and combines them in a number of clever and innovative ways.  

Therefore, this essay will focus on both first the parallels and the innovations.

The relationship or perhaps “arc” would be a better term, between Angel and Darla is one of great passion, and one which hearkens back to many in this genre. Darla was a prostitute in the early Virginia colony. She was dying of syphilis in 1609 when she was sired. In 1753 in a small village in Ireland she found Liam, (Later Angeles Angel’s evil alter ego and then Angel), a drunken, never do well, son of a farmer. Darla decided to make herself a mate and so sired him. They cut a path of death and other forms of violence across the western world that was unprecedented even for their kind. He soon came to outstrip her in terms of ferocity, at the same time Darla tout Angeles much about there kind (how to “hunt” and so forth), this lasted for 145 years. (This has a parallel in the Livia-Tiberius dynamic in I-Claudius with the mother bringing the son in to evil and, in the son becoming more evil then the mother and, coming to hate her with time).

Then in 1898, Angeles was cursed as punishment for his crimes with a conscience (soul), and in so doing Angel was born, (though he continued to have a vampire body), and after a brief attempt keep going as they had been. He and Darla broke up in 1900. Angel plagued into extreme regret for his crimes and depression, and even self mutilation. (This has a parallel in Oedipus Rex when Oedipus blinds himself after he learns he killed his father and married his mother.) They would not see each other again until 1997 when she tried to win him back. What they did not know at the time was that by having one moment of perfect happiness most likely through sex Angel would loose his soul, but at the time Darla’s plain failed and he staked her. However she was brought back to life by Angel’s enemies, (evil gods) it was by this time known that Angel could lose his soul through sex but they brought her back as a human and with her own soul in her again. And as a result she begins to feel regret for her crimes. (They are good or evil depending on whether or not they have a soul). (This has a parallel in the story of Sir Palles from Arthurian Legend, the character of Nimery who with her evil alter ego Vivien introduced the notion of good and evil sides coexisting in one body). Angel tries to save her from the returned syphilis. (Angel's motivations are ambivalent. on the one hand he wants someone who could understand someone who was a vampire who now has a soul so he could have a mate, but at the same time he wants to punish her for what she did to him, but then again he feels some unspoken obligation to her as a son feels for a mother, and yet he is also very attracted to her in a romantic/sexual sense). She does come to want redemption (this high emphasis on redemption seems to come from the writers of Angel themselves). So Angel appeals to the powers that be (good gods), and they put him through a series of grueling trials to save her but the powers ultimately refuse to help her. The evil gods who brought her back then forcibly revamped her (well Angel was too badly wounded from the trials to stop them). Angel then becomes very depressed and then begins on a downward spiral ultimately he takes her to try and lose himself (and his soul) in her by having sex with her. For possibly through intervention by the powers he has a revelation and in accordance with his stoic ethnic he believes that he has to accept what happened (that she is lost to him), and move on if he is to maintain his sanity. So he discards her. Naturally she resents this and it later troubles him as well. 

However definitely through the intervention of the powers, Darla conceives a child that night (which is biologically impossible for a vampire). She returns to Angel and demands help or alternatively, that he kill her. She is sharing a soul with the baby and this is driving her crazy, though she does come to accept the baby and the influence of the soul after she sees that the baby is human on ultrasound. She and Angel are reconciled and she professes to love the baby “wholly and completely” and she regrets her past crimes “show much death…so much distraction we can never make up for it”. However she is incapable of giving birth to the child so to give him life she sacrifices herself by staking herself. (This notion of the feminine character committing suicide is strong in other forms of the motif as well, Jocasta commits suicide in Oedipus Rex, and her and Oedipus’s daughter Antigone also chooses to die rather than compromise her principles. And in a similar tragic story of Dido and Aneaes, Dido kills herself when Aneaes abandons her for his duty).

The personalities of the characters are also very similar Jocasta, Antigone, Dido, Nimery/Vivien, and in a perverse way Livia, and Darla as well are all beautiful, voluptuous, almost magical, shrewd (but often manipulative) and intelligent. Wheel Oedipus, Aneaes, Sir Palles, and indeed Angel too are all dutiful; often stoic but with a great deal of feeling beneath that veil, but also with a darker side to their nature and intelligent.

In conclusion then, it is not surprising that this genre has remained so popular down the centuries even to today. Everything about these characters, both men and women is bipolar in nature the good and the evil, the selfishness and the selflessness, the feminine and masculine, the passion and the logic, the love and the hate, all makes for remarkable literature. It is therefore not surprising that the writers of Angel seemed to take in so much from the various forms of this genre and in the process have become a part of it. It has been around for millennia and probably and hopefully will be around for millennia to come.