Robert Eggers' terror of vampire lore used in Nosferatu.

On the surface, it may seem like an obvious reference to the essential commonality in vampire lore: a vampire drinking blood to sustain their vitality in their immortal life. However, the background of Bram Stoker's original novel and real history makes the quote multilayered and all the more satisfying. Its potency in Eggers' adaptation is part of what has made vampires truly gothic again, contributing to the relief of Nosferatu's great box office success following the woefully under-appreciated The Northman.

Knoock's "The Blood Is The Life" Quote In Nosferatu Explained

Knock Exclaims The Line In The Infamous Pigeon Scene

Knock is an estate agent and Thomas' (Nicholas Hoult) employer in Nosferatu who, unbeknownst to Thomas, has sent him to Count Orlok's (Bill Skarsgård) castle in the Carpathians as an offering. The viewer sees Knock's deterioration in the movie, with his repetition of the word "providence," an ironic word choice in and of itself, increasing in intensity after his confinement by Dr. Sievers (Ralph Ineson). In a horrifying scene involving a pigeon, one of the most terrifying scenes in Nosferatu, Knock repeats the memorable phrase from the original Nosferatu movie.

A key part of Knock's madness is his fixation on blood. It is revealed in the novel that Dracula sent Renfield insects to eat and promised him more insects and immortal life in return for being his loyal servant. There has even been a clinical vampire syndrome named after Renfield. "The blood is the life" has been used in multiple adaptations as a significant moment in the character's haunting arc – most memorably, Tom Waits as Renfield rasped the Dracula quote word for word in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.

"The Blood Is The Life" Appears In Bram Stoker's Dracula Novel

The Memorable Quote Was Taken Faithfully From The Source Material

Nosferatu is based on the Dracula story but features different character names and an additional plague plotline. Knock is based on Renfield from the original novel. His essential story is the same – however, his estate agent origins are not stated in the novel. In Stoker's Dracula, Renfield is an inmate at an asylum where Dr. Seward treats patients. The asylum is next door to where Dracula bought a house in London, and the count takes advantage of Renfield's vulnerable mind. That he has very little backstory in the novel shows the reader anyone could fall under the vampire's thrall.

The quote appears in Dr. Seward's diary.

Unlike the many movie adaptations of Dracula, Renfield does not shout the words in the novel. The quote appears in Dr. Seward's diary as part of the novel's overall epistolary narrative, with the different characters' s compiled by Mina into a linear story. Dr. Sewart recounts:

"He was lying on his belly on the floor licking up, like a dog, the blood which had fallen from my wounded wrist. He was easily secured, and, to my surprise, went with the attendants quite placidly, simply repeating over and over again: \The blood is the life! The blood is the life!'"

The continued repetition of the phrase emphasizes Renfield’s obsessive state of mind and mental decline. Knock (based on Renfield) serves to show the viewer what could have happened to Thomas (based on Jonathan Harker). The decision to make Knock a previous estate agent as a dark mirror for Thomas, contrary to the novel, has been used in other adaptations, such as Universal's 1931 movie starring Bela Lugosi, and in Coppola's 1992 movie. It has almost become an accepted rewrite of Renfield's story, an innovative example of why horror deserves more respect in cinema.

"The Blood Is The Life" Partly Refers To Blood Transfusion In Dracula

Unlike Nosferatu, Dracula Is Set In The Late 19th Century

"The blood is the life" also partly refers to the Victorian era and the history of medicine. This is historically important because, at the time Dracula was written (1897), blood transfusion was still a new and very risky process. This is missing from Nosferatu because of the setting change established in F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. Eggers' remake is true to the original in that he set the narrative in 1838. After a grisly past, blood transfusion was not reintroduced into mainstream medicine until the mid-19th century (via Britannica).

However, blood types were not discovered until Karl Landsteiner's work in 1900. At the time of Stoker's novel, having a blood transfusion was still a potentially disastrous gamble for this reason. In Dracula, Dr. Seward recounts how Stoker's character Professor Van Helsing explains to Lucy's fiancé Arthur the necessity for it: "Young miss is bad, very bad. She wants blood, and blood she must have or die."

Although Lucy receives blood transfusions from multiple male characters, Arthur's blood is described as special. It is compared to an act of matrimony: "Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins had made her truly his bride?" The mixing of blood therefore is comparable to sexual intercourse, which is subverted by the siring process of vampirism in the novel and many of its adaptations. Despite the change in setting and removal of the transfusion aspect, Eggers' is no exception, portraying the overwhelming significance and symbolism of blood in Nosferatu.

"The Blood Is The Life" Also Shows An Inheritance Fixation In Dracula

Monstrous Inheritance Is A Classic Gothic Trope

Inherent in the Stoker quote "The blood is the life" used in Nosferatu is a fixation on monstrous inheritance, a key concern in Dracula. Stoker's Dracula depicts blood as a symbol of both social and biological inheritance, a potent association twisted by vampirism. The novel chillingly demonstrates how these inheritances are monstrously perverted through biological, social, and legal transmission. It is intrusive and intrinsic, manifesting in both beneficial and detrimental ways. By exploring the inherited aspects of female sexuality and gender through a Darwinian lens, the novel critically examines the problematic sources of these inherited traits.

A relic of a bygone era, Orlok symbolizes the dangers lurking beneath the surface of civilization, a haunting of the past in the present, which is key to the gothic genre.

Interestingly, both Eggers' Nosferatu and the original 1922 film place the narrative in the 1830s, a period before Darwin's groundbreaking work. This seems like a positive shift to avoid the unsavory racist connotations of writings on atavism later in the Victorian era. Nonetheless, Orlok embodies ancient characteristics and evokes modern society’s fears of regression, emphasized by the perceived-civilized characters' rejection of alchemic and "heathen" ideas. A relic of a bygone era, he symbolizes the dangers lurking beneath the surface of civilization, a haunting of the past in the present, which is key to the gothic genre.

Nosferatu's "The Blood Is The Life" Is An Inversion Of Scripture

Vampirism Is A Perversion Of Communion In Gothic Literature

Finally, Knock's iconic line, "The blood is the life," directly inverts the Christian concept of sacrifice. In Christianity, the shedding of Christ's blood is seen as the ultimate act of love and redemption, offering salvation to humanity. Nosferatu, however, perverts this sacred act. He consumes blood, not for the spiritual salvation of others, but for his own eternal damnation and the damnation of his victims. Interestingly, Nosferatu gets his hooks into Ellen's (Lily-Rose Depp) mind when she is in a state of spiritual crisis, pleading to guardian angels or "anything" at the beginning, to which he ominously replies with the targeting statement: "You."

Eggers further underscores this inversion, especially with key difference between Nosferatu and Dracula.

Source: Britannica