ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that when past critics have analyzed the modernista prose that includes supernatural events, ominous settings, doubles, and vampires, they have usually classified it as la literatura fantastica. To emphasize the perils of the industrial age on Central American culture, Turcios evokes Guatemalan folktales and pre-Columbian myths in the construction of his vampire villain, Fray Felix—a duplicitous priest in fiery pursuit of the novel's young heroine, Luz de Mendoza. However, in El vampiro, the plot unfolds in a Latin American setting in which he commemorates colonial traditions and the indigenous past, while also articulating feelings of displacement and dread for his contemporary world. Turcios's representation of a feudal, dark, and monstrous world, vis-a-vis the Gothic, metaphorically reflects the ways evil entities were in the process of destroying consecrated spaces. Through the Gothic handling of menacing entities, El vampiro articulates inscrutable fears brought about by a fast-changing, unknowable, and portentous future.
