Controls over Body: How Politics Operates the Body in Vampire Academy Universe

The concept of body politics underpins the rigid and oppressive class system in Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy (VA) series. This study examines how power is enacted on individual bodies through regulation, control, and normalization. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Scheper-Hughes and Lock, the research analyzes the body as a political reality in which social norms often exert greater disciplinary force than formal legal systems. By examining textual data from the Vampire Academy series, the methodology focuses on the interactions and emotions of the Moroi, Dhampir, and Humans. The findings reveal that stability in the VA universe is maintained through the synergy of religious morality and social class hierarchies. Moral control is evident in the characters’ internalization of Christian-influenced ethics, which uses emotions such as guilt to foster social cohesion. Simultaneously, the class system dictates physical behavior and bodily comportment in this series, demonstrating that power operates most effectively through the internalization of values within characters' minds and emotions, thereby disciplining their bodies to maintain the established social order.