21. Jahrhundert

The 21. Jahrhundert is the contemporary era in which the novel’s characters live, and its importance comes into focus through contrasts with the past. For Thomas, the modern age offers freedoms unavailable when he grew up: he can live openly as a gay man, rather than face the whipping or death that once threatened men whose sexuality was discovered. At the same time, the present-day setting lets the novel place supernatural lives within the routines and relationships of an apparently ordinary society.

Historical Contrast and Sexual Openness

Thomas does not regret becoming a vampire more than a century earlier, in part because it allowed him to survive into a time when he no longer has to conceal his sexuality. His reflection makes the century a measure of social change, not simply a date: the danger he remembers—punishment or death for men exposed as homosexual—stands against the relative freedom he experiences now. The modern period does not erase his jealousy or reshape his underlying character, but it changes the conditions in which he can live and love.

A Modern World for Long-Lived Vampires

The contemporary setting accommodates characters whose lives extend across generations. Samson became a vampire in the early nineteenth century and learned that he still needed money to live. He turned nighttime protection into a business, guarding wealthy travelers and valuable shipments while gaining access to criminals he could feed on. In the present, that enterprise has grown into Scanguards, whose branch reports Samson reviews after visiting Dr. Drake. The contrast between his old origins and his modern company gives the century a practical dimension: survival now involves not only feeding, but also operating within a large commercial organization.

Everyday Life and Hidden Identity

Modern social life initially makes the supernatural easier for Delilah to overlook. When she encounters Thomas and Milo together, their presence as a couple reassures her; she sees two men who might protect her, not evidence of a hidden vampire world. Yet the ordinary surface does not hold. After seeing Samson’s eyes glow red during an interruption by Ricky, she later recognizes the same sign, along with the teeth protruding from Samson’s mouth, as evidence of what he is.

The earlier clues also become legible in retrospect. In the car, Delilah connects Samson’s lack of a bathroom mirror to the belief that vampires have no reflections, his inability to be with her in daylight to the danger of the sun, and his strength and stamina to his supernatural nature. His apparent ability to carry her effortlessly and the absence of food in his refrigerator likewise take on new meaning. The modern setting supplies familiar surroundings; Delilah’s accumulating observations reveal how thoroughly Samson’s life departs from them.

Narrative Significance

The century holds two different kinds of change together. Thomas’s experience marks a social opening in which he can express an identity once made dangerous, while Delilah’s growing recognition of Samson shows that contemporary normality can conceal, rather than eliminate, profound differences. The era is therefore both a genuine improvement in the social conditions Thomas recalls and the everyday backdrop against which the novel’s secret vampire society must manage its visibility.