Between Fear and
Fascination: The Crisis of Victorian Gender Ideologiesin Le Fanu’s Carmilla
Md Dilwar
Hossain,
Assistant
Professor,
Department of
English,
Dwijendralal
College,
Krishnagar,
Nadia, West Bengal, India.
Abstract: This
paper argues that Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella Carmilla is a crucial text for understanding Victorian sexual
politics, using the vampire figure as a complex cultural metaphor. This
analysis argues that the vampire figure transcends gothic horror to embody the
era's repressed anxieties concerning female sexuality and patriarchal
authority. Carmilla’s predatory homoeroticism directly subverts the celebrated
Victorian ideal of female purity, presenting a terrifying challenge to
compulsory heterosexuality and domestic norms. The narrative further critiques
gendered systems of knowledge, contrasting the ineffective rationalism of male
characters with a more intuitive, feminine receptiveness to the supernatural.
This juxtaposition highlights the failure of patriarchal structures to
comprehend or control subversive feminine power. Finally, the paper explores
the parallel between vampirism and aristocratic exploitation, positing that all
forms of social power—whether based on class, gender, or age—are inherently
predatory. Through these layered metaphors, Carmilla is revealed as a
sophisticated cultural critique, mapping the profound tensions within the
Victorian social order and exposing the dark undercurrents of fear and desire
beneath its serene surface.
Keywords: Gothic, Gender, Class, Vampire, Sexual politics
Irish writer
Joshep Sheridan Le Fannu’s proto-vampire novella Carmilla is crucial in
the study of the Victorians sexual politics. The novella, which has inspired
Bam Stocker to write Dracula, contains more than mere vampiric
credentials. The story does work not only as a political and cultural metaphor
but also a representation of Victorian gender and sexuality— often
inviting scholarly criticism and rereading. Carmilla grabbed the popular
interest primarily for being the vampiric tale. But beyond that purely
sensational prototype the “vampire fed a variety of metaphorical hungers in the
wider Victorian imagination” (Costello-Sullivan, xviii). Carmilla was
first published as a novella in serial installments in 1871-1872 in the journal
The Dark Blue. Later it was republished within his supernatural story
collection In a Glass Darkly in 1872.
Stories about
vampires appear in different cultural systems extending as far back as primeval
times. But they were not called vampires back then and most of them did not
look the way it is imagined today. For example, Mesopotamian ‘Lamashtu’ was a
creature of a head of a lion and body of a donkey and ancient Greek ‘Striges’
were simply described as bloodthirsty birds. On the other hand, Malaysian
‘Penanggalan’ was a flying female head with dangling entrails, Australian
‘Yara-Ma-Yha-Who’ was a little red body with a big head, a large mouth and
bloodsucking vestibules on its hands and feet. Though in different folktales
their looks are different, all these beings have one common characteristic i.e.
they sustain themselves by consuming the life force of a living creature. This
shared trait is what defines a vampire; all other attributes change with time
and location. The modern Eurocentric ideal of vampire emerged in 18th
century Eastern Europe. With the dramatic increase of vampire superstitions,
storis of bloodsucking shadowy creatures became nightly bedside terror and
popular folklore. Like ‘moroi’ among the Romanian people and the ‘lugat’ in
Albania provide the most common vampire traits known today. Such as Vampires
being undead and nocturnal and shape shifting. Eastern Europe in the 18th
century was a grim place with many deaths occurring from unknown diseases and
plagues. Without medical/ scientific explanation people searched for
supernatural causes for the deaths. When the villagers dug up graves to discern
the cause of mysterious deaths, they would often find the cadavers looking much
like alive— longer hairs and fingernails, bloated bellies and blood at the corner
of mouths. For the villagers then, the dead bodies were not truly dead.
Villagers, being unaware of the scientific causes behind those deaths, had kept
vampire hunts alive in stories and in local folklore. This led to the works of
literature, such as Polidori’s “The Vampyre” and the novella Carmilla
and most famously Bam Stocker’s “Dracula”. Though these writers incorporated
socio-historical materials, it was these local myths and folktales that
inspired the main elements of their narratives. Writers, also inventing new
traits of life-sucking creatures, perfectly enacted the age-old tradition of
elaborating upon and extending the myth of vampires. After the discovery of
Carmilla’s tomb, her corpse is subjected to the traditional measures of
beheading and a stake through heart. It marks the quite natural end of a story
in which legend, folktale and superstitions are part of everyday reality.
Carmilla
incorporated traditional gothic elements and the popular Irish folktale by
carrying Irish Banshee which is a female spirit who brings in the death
of family members (Sabriya145). Banshee (or Bansi) is often associated
with specific Irish families, largely from the Gaelic descent. Like a Banshee,
Carmilla is attracted towards Laura who is her distant ancestor. And later she
becomes almost a part of Laura’s family by getting invited to live at their
castle. Vampire, having its folkloric origin, rose to its mass cultural
interest in the 18th century and readily became a part of Victorian horror
code. Though initially the notion of vampire was marked with profound ugliness,
it evolved into dangerously beautiful and seductive creatures with all traits
of human beings painted in modern literary works. That paradoxical mix of fear,
attraction and disgust is seen in Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmella.
In his study of
monsters and Victorian world, Jeffrey Cohen as observed- “the linking of
monstrosity with the forbidden makes the monster all the more appealing as a
temporary egress from constraint… we distrust and loathe the monster at the
same time we envy its freedom, and perhaps its sublime despair” (Cohen 17).
Throughout history monsters or an object of mass horror arise in certain
historical times as a certain manifestation of cultural fear. Cohen writes “The
monster is born… as an embodiment of certain cultural moment¬- of a time, a
feeling and a place. The monster’s body quite literary incorporates fear,
desire, anxiety and fantasy... the monstrous body is pure culture” (Cohen
4). Considering the widespread sexual
repression of the Victorian period, especially regarding the female sexuality,
it is no wonder that many monstrous creatures have arisen across the genres of
that age. Many of the characteristics of vampires, like the hunger for blood
and flesh akin to lust, make it an ideal creature for displacement of society’s
sexual fears and anxieties.
Vampires’
supernatural features offered a sense of relief by inviting mystery in a world
which is aligned with a growing enlightenment ethos and scientific outlook.
Also, this might carry a corresponding sense of disillusionment from science.
However, science has been foregrounded in the novella by various tropes.
Significantly the prologue to the novella mentions Doctor Hesselius who is the
actual narrator by the means of his “collected papers” (Le Fanu 5). And the
prologue deliberately tries to present the narrative of supernaturalism as an
account of “learned Doctor’s reasoning” (Le Fanu 5). Also, in the narrative
there are references of contemporary figures such as natural scientists Georges
Louis, Comte de Buffon etc. Therefore, the consciousness science and reasoning
have been juxtaposed with the supernatural suggesting a tension between the
two.
It is quite
evident that Sheridan Le Fanu was influenced by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s
narrative poem Christabel (1797). A clear similarity is found between
the vampire Carmilla and Christabel’s supernatural antagonist Geraldine. The
two central characters of both Christabel and Carmilla are the daughter of
deceased mothers and currently in charge of their fathers. Laura and Christabel
both are lonely living in an isolated palace under the care of their
governesses. After the intervention of the supernatural women- Geraldine and
Carmilla, both undergo similar kind of symptoms of disease and decay. Whine in Christabel
the depiction of Geraldine and Christabel’s shared bed and Geraldine's ‘vow of
secrecy’ about their encounter has been seen as suggestive of a sexual
relationship, potentially a lesbian one, though the poem's language is deliberately
ambiguous, Le Fanu’s vampire-story Carmilla is clearly centered around a
lesbian relationship between two young women.
And that
gendered relationship has been placed opposed to the human men who are
“consistently unwilling to accept the reality of supernatural influence” (Bell
57). In the novella men are endowed with the rationalistic empirical knowledge,
they are not quite capable to realise the supernatural. Relying largely on the
masculine system of knowledge they consistently incapable to reshape their
understanding of the world that includes the supernatural feminine threat. And
thus, they could react readily and adequately to the vampire women not before
the consequence reaches its end. While the human women— Laura and her two
governesses, “are more accepting to supernatural explanations” (Bell 57).
Generally, the knowledge of supernatural passes through mother to daughter. But
being motherless and raised by men, Laura and Bartha, lacks that knowledge and
becomes a prey of a feminine supernatural vampire. This shows tension between
the authoritative patriarchal force that tries to control the knowledge and the
supernatural women which challenges that authority.
It tells the
story of Laura, a young woman living in a remote Austrian castle, who
befriended the mysterious and attractive lady- Carmilla. Being revealed as a
vampire, Carmilla developed a passionate, romantic, and ultimately destructive
relationship with Laura, affecting her both physically and emotionally. From
the moment Laura and Carmilla met they were attached to each other
reciprocally. Laura admits: “She interested and own me; she was so beautiful
and so indescribably engaging” (Le Fanu 24). She also adds “I did feel, as she
said, ‘drawn towards her’, but there was also something of repulsion” (Le Fanu
25). This attraction towards another can be interpreted as thesexual attraction
triggered by the beauty and loneliness of the two girls. The sense of
‘repulsion’ that she mentioned might be aroused of the repulsion towards the very
feeling of that very ‘sexual attraction’ which transgressed the societal moral
code. With the passing of time, they came closer mentally and physically. When
Laura asked Carmilla whether she was in love with any man, Carmilla answered,
“I have been in love with no one, and never shall… unless it should be with
you… Darling, darling… I live in you; and you would die for me; I love you so”
(Le Fanu 29). However, no sense of disgust or repulsion was found in Laura’s
obsessed attraction towards Carmilla. She writes: “How beautiful (Carmilla)
looked in the moonlight! Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid
her face in my neck and hair. Her soft cheek was glowing against mine” (LeFan
32).Like this, there are multiple homosexual connotation story. The erotic
nature of their relationship becomes much clear from the following narrative:
“Sometimes there came a sensation as if a hand was drawn softly along my cheek
and neck. Sometimes it was as if warm lips kissed me, and longer and longer and
more lovingly as they reached my throat, but there the caress fixed itself. My
heartbeat faster, my breathing rose and fell rapidly and full drawn” (Le
Fan 33). It is quite evident that Laura is helplessly surrendered to the sexual
charm of Carmilla.
However, many
critics find a mother-daughter dynamics between Carmilla and Laura specifically
for their wide age gap and Laura, being a lonely young girl in need of a
motherly care, finds one in grown up Carmilla. Also, a direct biological
relationship existed between the two since Carmilla/ Mircalla was Laura’s
ancestor. Considering these, it has been argued that Carmella plays the role of
a “demonic shadow mother to motherless girls” (William Veeder213), both to
Bartha and Laura. Carmilla’s role as the ‘shadow mother’ can be evidently seen
in this description: “One night, instead of the voice I was accustomed to hear
in the dark, I heard one, sweet and tender, and at the same time terrible,
which said, ‘Your mother warns you to beware of the assassin.’ At the same time
a light unexpectedly sprang up, and I saw Carmilla, standing, near the foot of
my bed, in her white nightdress, bathed, from her chin to her feet, in one
great stain of blood” (Le Fanu 64). Here the boundary between the Laura’s dead
mother and Carmilla has become blurred, exposing Carmilla as the darker side of
motherhood. Therefore, Carmilla adopts multiple roles in the story;
simultaneously she is a mother figure, she is childfigure, and she is a lover
figure, putting women’s gendered role in crisis.
The crisis of
gender role, in Carmilla, becomes much evident in the patriarchal
control over information which subsequently becomes the key marker for the
control over the sexuality. In the novel, patriarchy tries to control the
female’s access to information by various means; Laura’s unnamed father, as the
family patriarch, accomplishes that role primarily. Judith Bells finds his
management of information is incomplete and irresponsible (Bell 58). Towards
the beginning of the text, it is found that Laura’s father entirely forgot to
inform her about the death of their family fried, Bartha Rheinfeldt. He also
refuses to tell Laura what is exactly told by the doctor about her own health.
Laura even not allowed to know what was precisely happening with the peasant
women who were dying almost every night. Throughout the novella Laura’s father
tries to infantilise her though she was an adult of almost twenty years. Even
towards the end of the story when Carmilla has arrived at the Chapel and her
vampiric nature had revealed, Laura could not fully understand what had
happened. Laura’s father attempted to protect her daughter only by not letting
her know the exact scenario and therefore it made her more afraid. Without
explaining what exactly had happened, he continued with his condescending
attitude making Laura to know that Carmilla was a vampire at until “a few days
later” (Le Fanu 95). Without having the means nor the knowledge necessary to
resist Carmilla, he kept Laura entirely oblivious to the supernatural threat
plunging at the entire remote area. Judith Bell believes that his dismissive
attitude toward Laura, to some extent, was responsible for her melancholy
nervousness at the end of the novella (Bell 59). This trait of patriarchy is
also found in Dracula, in which Mina and Van Helsing prevent woman from gaining
knowledge and infantilise them in the name of protection. Consequently, that
denial access to knowledge makes the women vulnerable. However, after Mina was
attacked, the men in Dracula finally realises the importance of sharing the
knowledge/information with women. In Dracula the decision to include women in
the planning has been key to their victory over the Dacula, implying that fully
informed women are key to success. (Bell 59). However, the men in Carmilla—
Luara’s father, General Spielsdorf, vampire-hunter Baron Vordenburg, even the
doctor and the priest— never include the female into their plan of protection.
Though they were successful to kill the ‘undead’ Carmilla/Mirclla, they could
not comprehend the vampire’s influence persisted on Laura, long after her
death. Though, she was taken to Italy by her father for her recovery after the
banishment of the vampire, Laura’ concluding sentence in the novella- “the
image of Carmilla returns to memory with ambiguous alterations sometimes…I
heard the light step of Carmilla at the at the drawing room door” (Fanu 108)
indicates that she remained under Carmilla’s charm. Vampire-hunter Baron
Vordenburg and other men’s failure to erase out the vampire allows the author
“to expose the problems inherent in the traditional treatment of gender roles,
especially in regard to men’s adherence to outdated, idealised models of
chivalry.” (Bell 59) It is in their desperate attempt to limit women’s access
to knowledge they almost ruined themselves. Interestingly, Carmilla and her
so-called mother capitalised the Victorian aristocratic men’s adherence to
patriarchal standard of supporting/protecting women, to gain comfortable access
to their homes and daughters (Bell 61).
Carmilla herself
preys upon young middleclass and lower-class women alike- representing the
similarity between the predatory women and predatory aristocracy in general.
Women in Carmilla can essentially be categorised into two classes- the
potentially powerful and the powerless. The implicit connection between
aristocracy and vampirism suggests that power is necessarily predatory, whether
that power is that of the aristocrat over peasant, the vampire over the women,
or even the older men over young women. (Judith Bell, 73-74). Therefore, the
novella becomes the critique for the Victorian societal structures in terms of
mapping it in relation to gender.
The vampire
Carmilla represents a terrifying form of female homoeroticism to the Victorian
reader. Her character is portrayed as almost incestuous, reflecting society's
deep contempt for homosexuality. Her threat is specific: she undermines the
celebrated image of the pure woman and destabilizes the rigid heterosexual
monogamy that was the foundation of Victorian social order. While the Victorian
ideal confined women to the role of a domestic "angel," many were
actively seeking greater autonomy. Le Fanu's Carmilla serves as an
ironic critique, exposing the underlying horror of this very ideal—the
oppressive nature of the period's longing for domestic coziness and a return to
traditional intimacy.
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