Vampires of El Norte

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-13

Chapters 14-20

Chapters 21-28

Chapters 29-34

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Red Dress

Nena first asks about a red dress when she and Néstor are laughing about the impossible future in which Néstor teaches Nena to be “bad.” The red dress symbolizes Nena’s free will, and her ability to do what she wants without the fear of what other people think. In this fantasy, Nena says she wants the dress to be “bloodred […] And cut so low the tías talk about it for weeks,” and Néstor promises that it will be “As red as fruta guadalupana” (190). In this conversation with Néstor, Nena feels safe enough to consider what may happen if she does what she wants. In the final chapter of the book, Nena wears a blood-red dress at the Nochebuena celebration. No longer afraid of losing her parents’ love, Nena her dream becomes her reality. The dress she wears at the celebration is “redder than fruta guadalupana” and the tías indeed gossip about its color (360). The dress demonstrates Nena’s growth throughout the novel into someone braver than she or Néstor imagined as children. What begins as simply speaking her wishes aloud becomes acting on them and growing into the person who feels comfortable enough to wear the blood-red dress without fear of losing her loved ones.

Nena’s Scar

Nena’s scar helps emphasize the importance of fate, memory, and healing. Without the vampire’s attack, Néstor would never have left, she would never have become a healer and lived on her own, and neither of them would have become who they are. She is mostly forbidden to speak about that night because it is considered bad luck, but the scar reminds her that it was real and eventually helps her understand why Néstor fled. It emphasizes the role of memory in that no matter how much they ignore what happened, the scar remains as a reminder that without facing the past they cannot move forward. Finally, it establishes her connection to the vampires: she can communicate with them because of her scar, letting her free them from the Anglos. It is a physical manifestation of the Connection Between All Living Things.

Vampires

The vampires represent both the evil of settler colonialism and the potential of even the scariest monsters for goodness. Rather than writing about many of the evil things the Anglos did as they tried to steal Mexican land, Cañas uses the vampires as a stand-in. The vampires’ presence in the main characters’ lives is contingent on the Anglos’: as soon as Anglos show up to Los Ojuelos, Nena is bitten by a vampire. For the first half of the book, they are a mostly unseen, unstoppable, and inhuman force. Their power becomes greater than they are because of the fear and confusion they inspire. Yet when faced, and when freed from their captivity, the vampires show their grace in fleeing Los Ojuelos rather than attacking them. Their destructive behavior proves to be the result of having been exploited by the colonists’ greed and cruelty, symbolizing the way colonialism damages Indigenous lands, animals, and people. The vampires’ growth from evil monsters to wild creatures suggests that no creature is naturally bad. In the way their communities heal from a vampire attack, they also emphasize the power of alternative medicines. The cure to susto is herbs and aura work. In the same way, Anglos will not be cured of their evil with modern medicine. Their evil is the result of their greed and cruelty.