BEFORE DRACULA (PART 3) Carmilla
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s CARMILLA published in 1872 is the first notable
female vampire, a sensual work that focuses on the rather erotic relationship
between a vampiress and her prey, a young girl named Laura.
If Polidori’s Lord Ruthven, Varney, The Vampyre, and of course, Bram Stoker’s
Count, were the prototypes of the seductive, aristocratic male of the species,
to Carmilla falls the honor of being the female prototype.
But more than that, the story greatly influenced Bram Stoker’s own Dracula.
Much of "the vampire myth" that we assume was created by Bram Stoker
in Dracula is present in Carmilla. The vampire is not a demon, but someone risen
from the dead after being bitten, who tends to attack loved ones, family
members. There is the fascination with one victim, feeding on them over a period
of time, until they die.
Carmilla had superhuman strength, the ability to metamorphosis into an
animal, her favorite a cat. She sleeps in a coffin, which is found full of
blood. She is killed by a stake, then decapitated and burned.
The basic storyline is one that Bram Stoker and many other vampire authors
have followed: the attack, or rather attacks, the dreamlike quality of the
attacks and the slow withering away. The death of one of the characters, in this
case a neighbor’s daughter, that alerts the heros almost too late that there
is a vampire. The resuscitation, bring the victim back from the point of death.
The desperate hunt and finally the destruction of the immortal beast.
What makes this story different from those that followed are lesbian
overtones in the story. Carmilla’s attacks are almost seductions of the young
Laura. Then as now, taboo topics were often discussed in the disguise of
speculative fiction.
While the standard, heterosexual role model, male vampire seducing female
victim, has been in the majority, they aren’t the only pairings. This is
thanks to Carmilla.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT J. SHERIDAN LEFANU
Check out J. Seridan LeFanu website for information about Carmilla, movies based
on Carmilla, LeFanu’s life,
http://mural.uv.es/franqui/engmain.html
Another great resource LitGothic’s page on LeFanu
http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/lefanu.html
To Read Carmilla
Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu
http://www.sff.net/people/doylemacdonald/lit.htp
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~nauerbac/crml.html
Learn read some of his other stories, check out Gaslight.
http://www.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/
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