Le Fanu's Carmilla

Regarding Bram Stoker’s literary masterpiece, Dracula, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla presents a break from today’s established set of characters: male vampire, female victim. Instead Carmilla features a female vampire with the looks of a beautiful but weak girl. It is Carmilla’s looks that make everyone around her fall for her; the narrator-focalizer, Laura, refers to her beauty several times throughout the whole story – and other characters like Laura’s father and her governesses as well: “she is, I almost think, the prettiest creature I ever saw; about your [Laura’s] age, and so gentle and nice (Carmilla: 15).” However, ‘being gentle and nice’ are trivial character traits, overshadowed by the superficial appearance of things, as the next sentence, Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, reveals by emphasizing: “She’s absolutely beautiful (ibid.).” Indeed, the novella criticizes the superficial character of the fictional characters. Carmilla’s beauty makes them blind to her strange – even anti-social – behavior. Another reason for their consequent overlooking of signs – for example Laura who sees Carmilla right after being bitten and is not able to draw a connection – might be clichéd view of women as victims. Throughout the texts, women are mostly described as fragile creatures of delicate health in every ways subordinated to men. In fact, even when Laura’s physical state gets worse and worse, her father will not tell her what makes her ill even though she is the patient.

‘But do tell me, papa,’ I insisted, ‘what does he [the doctor] think is the matter with me?’ ‘Nothing; you must not plague me with questions,’ he answered […]  (ibid.: 53).

This quote emphasizes the relationship of men and women throughout the story. Here, men are supposed to be in charge, controlling even the access of important information deciding about life and death of the respective woman. Laura or also Bertha, the General’s daughter, are described as having merely two roles during the whole story: the role of the spectator – especially noticeable with Laura – and the victim. This gender model applies to the world view of the Victorian times. By inventing a female vampire, Le Fanu breaks with these notions of women functioning merely as accessories, but rather makes them dangerous, ready to act and seductive.