Gloating eyes and hot lips
In the weeks that follow, Carmilla and Laura become close friends, but Carmilla refuses to divulge anything about her family or former life. Carmilla also has other peculiarities. Her moods change abruptly, from extreme sweetness to intense anger; she sleeps a great deal during the day, and is often found sleepwalking at night. In addition, she hates the sound of Christian hymns. Most disturbingly, she begins to show a romantic attachment to Laura, which Laura finds repugnant:
‘Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, “You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever.”’
Destroying the vampire
As a result of this unwanted attention, Laura begins to become anxious, and experiences severe nightmares in which she dreams of a cat-like animal that attacks her, biting her chest, and then turns into a beautiful young woman.
We then find out what happened to the unfortunate Bertha. According to her guardian, Bertha was attacked by a young lady called Millarca, who came to the house in exactly the same circumstances as Carmilla. The guardian recounts how, on realizing Millarca was a vampire, he lay in wait for her, and saw her enter the room as a cat-like creature. The creature bit Bertha on the neck and then left, taking her human form once more. Shortly afterwards, Bertha died.
It then transpires that Millarca and Carmilla are one and the same, both incarnations of a famous vampire, Countess Karnstein, who died years ago. (There is some indication of this earlier in the novel, when a portrait of Countess Karnstein is seen, and it is pointed out that it exactly resembles Carmilla, down to a tiny mole on her neck.) Laura’s father vows to find and kill Carmilla, and after a dramatic showdown with the cornered vampire in a ruined chapel, a vampire specialist, Baron Vordenburg, is sent for. He manages to find the Countess’s tomb, exhumes the body, and performs the appropriate vampire-slaying rituals. Carmilla is destroyed for ever, and young Laura is saved from the vampire’s deathly embrace.
Lesbian love
Le Fanu’s Carmilla was a sensation. It clearly derived much of its excitement from the unspoken passion between the two young women, in scenes that were couched in the euphemistic language of the day, but which were quite clearly sexual in nature. In an age where young women spent a great deal of time together, often without male company, such feelings were bound to evoke great curiosity, particularly from female readers.
This aspect of the vampire myth, particularly in its portrayal of lust as a deathly form of greed, in which the aroused lover wants to consume the loved one, had never before been expressed so directly in gothic fiction. From this point on, the vampire becomes an iconic image of the sexually voracious individual, whether male or female, seeking to destroy the object of its passion by feasting on its flesh and drinking its blood. In this way, the myth begins to explore and express the controlling, destructive aspect of human sexuality. What was particularly shocking about Carmilla was that this covert discussion took place in the taboo context of lesbian love, and that the author attributed such intense sexual feelings to women as well as men.
Le Fanu was undoubtedly influenced in his writing by the French scholar Augustin Calmet’s work on vampires and revenants. This had been translated into English under the title of The Phantom World some years prior to the publication of Carmilla. In addition, Le Fanu is thought to have consulted Sabine Baring Gould’s Book of Werewolves, published in 1863, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s narrative poem Christabel, and Schloss Hainfeld, an account by Captain Basil Hall of the Royal Navy, telling of a winter spent in Lower Styria, Austria.
Carmilla was to have a lasting legacy in vampire literature. It greatly influenced the most famous novel of the genre, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and was also said to have inspired parts of Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw.
Bram Stoler’s Dracula
One of the most significant aspects of Carmilla, from today’s perspective, is that it was a forerunner of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Although Dracula was a much longer and more elaborate novel than Carmilla, the influence of the former work is evident in several ways. In the first draft of Dracula, seven years prior to final publication in 1897, the Count’s remote castle is set, like Le Fanu’s castle, in Styria, Austria. Later, this was altered, and Stoker made Transylvania the setting of the book. There are also many similarities between the characters of Carmilla and Lucy, Stoker’s central female vampire figure. Both are beautiful women who are not only very desirable to others, but who themselves have strong sexual desires. In addition to these important similarities, the ‘vampire expert’ in Stoker’s novel, Professor Abraham Van Helsing, bears more than a passing resemblance to Le Fanu’s vampire slayer, Baron Vordenburg.
Gothic fantasy
Dracula was an extremely significant novel that, after a relatively slow start, captured the public imagination and has provided the template for vampire horror fiction ever since. Contemporary commentators have pointed out that today, Dracula is regarded as a classic work of fiction, largely as the result of the attention drawn to it by the many film versions of the book that appeared in the twentieth century; however, at the time of its publication, it was seen by the majority of the public simply as an enjoyable adventure story. There were Victorian critics who recognized its seminal, iconic status, comparing it to other outstanding novels in the horror genre, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but in general, these reviewers were few and far between.
Abraham Stoker, was the personal assistant of Henry Irving, a well-known actor and the owner of the Lyceum Theatre in London. Besides his work for Irving, Stoker was also a prolific writer of novels and short stories. As a denizen of the London theatre, Stoker understood better than most the popular taste for dramatic action, high adventure, and gothic fantasy, and used this knowledge to make his fiction appealing to readers.
Bram, as he was generally known, had been brought up in County Donegal, the third son of seven children. His mother, Charlotte Thornely, was an early feminist. The family were cultured but not well off, and as a child Stoker suffered a great deal of illness. He was bedridden until the age of seven. During this time, his mother used to read to him and tell him ghost stories; he was an imaginative child, and, as he put it, ‘the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful … in later years.’
Science and superstition
At the age of seven, Bram made a miraculous recovery, completed his education, and went on to study at Trinity College, Dublin. He then became a theatre critic for a local paper. After reviewing a performance of Hamlet by Henry Irving, he and Irving became friends. Later, Stoker and his wife moved to London, where he began to work for Irving, whom he had now come to idolize. (He even named his only son after Irving.)
An intelligent, cultured man, Stoker read widely and had many interests, including the study of folklore, science, medicine, criminology, and the occult. He was also fascinated by mesmerism – a theraputic technique involving hypnotism. He had great faith in the power of science over irrationalism and superstition, which is ironic considering that he created the most famous evil vampire character in English literature. However, one could argue that the aim of Dracula was ultimately to help dispel the vampire myth once and for all. Moreover, some critics have pointed out that by the end of the nineteenth century, superstitious pagan beliefs among urban populations – at least in England – had receded to the point where it became possible to approach ideas of the supernatural in a more playful, entertaining way.
The Brides of Dracula
Stoker wrote Dracula as a se
ries of letters, journal entries, and newspaper clippings made by several narrators, which allowed him the scope to tell the story from different points of view. The adventure concerns a young solicitor, Jonathan Harker’s visit to his client, Count Dracula, who lives in a remote castle in the Carpathian Mountains. Harker finds his host gracious and welcoming, but realizes after a while that he has become trapped in the castle. Count Dracula tries to find out as much information as he can about London, Harker’s home city, and we get the impression that Dracula plans to visit the city soon.
In the meantime, the Count warns Harker not to wander around the castle at night, but Harker does so, trying to escape. He is set upon by three licentious women, The Brides of Dracula, who, as it transpires, are vampires. They attack Harker, who is saved at the last minute by the Count. Eventually, Harker makes his escape, returning to London and the company of his faithful fiancée, Mina Murray, and her friend, the vivacious Lucy Westenra.
Unbeknown to Harker, Dracula makes the journey to London from his castle in Transylvania, and begins to prey on the local populace. Not long afterwards, Lucy falls prey to a mysterious disease. Doctors are called in, including one Professor Abraham Van Helsing from Holland. Van Helsing immediately suspects that Lucy has been bitten by a vampire, but does not communicate his fears, instead treating his patient with blood transfusions. On the night Van Helsing returns to Amsterdam, Lucy and her mother are attacked by a huge wolf. Both women, tragically, die shortly afterwards.
Stabbed in the throat
After Lucy’s burial, reports in the newspaper describe a beautiful woman who stalks children by night. Van Helsing reads these reports and realizes that Lucy has now become a vampire. He and Lucy’s various suitors go to her grave and destroy her vampiric self by exhuming her body, cutting off her head, putting a stake through her heart, and filling her mouth with garlic.
However, Mina then becomes ill, and it transpires that she has developed a telepathic connection with Count Dracula, who has been wandering about London, and has visited her at night, feeding her his blood. Through Mina, who is hypnotized by Professor Van Helsing, the men track Dracula’s movements as he flees back to his castle in Transylvania. Finally, they catch up with him, just before nightfall, and stab him in the throat and heart. Count Dracula crumbles to dust and the spell is lifted.
Of all Stoker’s many sensationalist novels, Dracula became the most successful. Its theme of an English invasion by a foreign force, in this case Count Dracula’s visit to London, chimed with a number of other important novels on a similar theme, by writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, and Rider Haggard, concerning terrifying mythical creatures invading Britain from abroad. Commentators today have argued that Dracula drew much of its appeal from the idea that England was being influenced by corrupting forces from the continent; according to this argument, the image of the bloodsucking Austrian Count is symbolic of the gradual infiltration of degenerate influences from abroad.
The model for Count Dracula
As with John Polidori’s vampire, Count Dracula was an aristocratic figure. In Polidori’s case, he drew on the character of Lord Byron for inspiration. In Stoker’s, he used his boss, the charismatic Henry Irving, as a model for the vampire. Although talented, gracious, and charming, Irving could also be tyrannical and domineering, and it was the contrast between these two aspects of the same character that made Stoker’s fictional vampire so fascinating. Count Dracula expressed a deep dichotomy in human nature, that is, the existence of primitive, aggressive, destructive sexual drives alongside the cultured, refined personality.
In addition, the character of Van Helsing presented the paradox between science and irrationalism, in that the Professor is at once a well-educated medical man, with a vast knowledge of science, and at the same time has an extensive understanding of the darker forces of human nature, which includes vampirism. This theme of the dual personality, and the role of science in understanding the workings of the irrational unconscious mind, had previously been a theme in other Victorian stories and novels, such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, published in 1886.
The Order of the Dragon
There is some controversy as to the historical inspiration for the central character of Stoker’s Count Dracula. Some point to the infamous fifteenth century Prince of Wallachia, Vlad III, who was known as Vlad Tepes (meaning ‘Vlad the Impaler’). This ruler had a reputation as one of the most bloodthirsty men that ever lived, and was said to have killed hundreds of thousands of people by impaling them on sharp poles. His cruelty was legendary throughout Europe, but many Romanians saw him as a hero, since he had defended them from Turkish Muslims who wanted to invade the country.
The formidable Vlad III also had another name, commonly used by his people – Dracula. Vlad’s father had been a member of a secret order of knights called the Order of the Dragon. This was founded by King Sigismund of Hungary, who later became the Holy Roman Emperor, its purpose being to fight the enemies of Christianity. Vlad II took up this cause with a vengeance, so much so that he became known to his subjects as ‘dracul’ – the dragon. His son Vlad III then became known as ‘dracula’ – son of ‘dracul’.
According to various sources, including Stoker’s notes, the first draft of the novel featured a man named Count Wampyr as the main character. This was later changed to Dracula when Stoker came across the name during his research. However, it is not clear whether Stoker actually knew very much about the original Vlad the Impaler when he chose this name for his vampire; it may be that he simply liked the sound of it. Whatever the case, in his novel, Stoker made no reference to the fact that the Count had impaled thousands of hapless victims, nor that he had been involved in an ongoing battle with the Turks for control of his country (which, in Stoker’s account, is Transylvania, not Romania).
Bathing in blood
Other scholars point to Countess Elizabeth Bàthory, the sixteenth-century Hungarian aristocrat famous for torturing and murdering hundreds of young women in her castle, as a possible model for Count Dracula. In particular, there were rumours – some believe entirely unfounded – that the Countess liked to bathe in her victims’ blood, in the hope that this would help her to retain her youth. A similar theme emerges in Stoker’s book, when the Count is said to look younger after a feed of blood. However, this connection appears to be somewhat tenuous, since in many other accounts, vampires are said to be rejuvenated by the blood of their victims.
To this day, it is not clear exactly where Stoker derived the inspiration for his Count Dracula, but it seems likely that he was influenced by a combination of ideas, derived from his extensive research into European folklore and history.
A shameless hussy
While some regard Stoker’s Dracula as a rather crude, sensationalist novel, there is no doubt that it touches on some profound themes. First and foremost, Stoker explores the struggle between the modernizing forces of science and technology and the dark, primitive currents of pagan belief that were still alive in rural parts of Europe during the Victorian period. His character Van Helsing seems to give credence to both these approaches, on the one hand using modern medical techniques such as blood transfusions to cure his patient, and on the other employing age-old remedies such as hanging a necklace of garlic flowers around her neck, to ward off vampires. At a time when investigations into psychology were only just beginning to be taken seriously, Stoker presents innovative ideas about the healing power of the mind, and the ways that medical science can harness this power (for example, through hypnotism).
Secondly, the book is concerned with another issue of great importance to Victorian society, that is to say, the changing role of women. In particular, the issue of female sexuality is addressed, though in a less than progressive way. In the story, we witness the gradual corruption of Lucy from a lively, popular, and attractive young virgin into a shameless hussy. Lucy is depicted as having many suitors, and as enjoying
the attention paid to her by all of them, until she finally chooses a husband. There is an inference that her interest in men, combined with her beauty, leads her to her eventual ruin, in the shape of becoming a sexually aggressive, lustful vampire. By contrast, Mina, the other woman in the story, is presented as feminine and maternal, devoted to her husband, Harker; the implication is that, as a consequence, she is saved the wanton Lucy’s terrible fate.
The fate of Count Dracula
Bram Stoker, it is generally believed, had high hopes that his patron Henry Irving would play the role of Count Dracula in a stage adaptation of the novel. Irving, however, who regarded himself as a champion of the theatre as a highbrow art form, was dismissive of the idea, much to Stoker’s disappointment. Stoker’s dream was never realized before Irving died in 1905. In 1912, Stoker himself died, after a series of strokes, which some biographers have attributed to syphilis. Despite his many literary efforts, he had made relatively little money in his life, and most of his work was soon forgotten.
It was left to Stoker’s widow Florence to publish a posthumous short story collection, Dracula’s Guest and Other Weird Stories, two years after his death. In 1922, Stoker’s novel Dracula was adapted for the screen, prompting Mrs Stoker to sue the director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, through the British Society of Authors. She claimed that she had never given permission for the story to be filmed, and had not been paid a single penny in royalties for it. In July 1925, having battled determinedly with the film makers, the courts finally decided in favour of Mrs Stoker.
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