Critical Analysis of Interview with the Vampire

Critical Analysis of Interview with the Vampire

Charismatic. Charming. Sensual. Beautiful. Would you ever use these adjectives to describe a vampire? The common theme in portraying vampires in literature has always involved depictions of great violence, ugliness, and fear. Novels involving vampires never portrayed the vampire as a heroic character, but rather as the villain who was then destroyed in the end. Stereotypical vampires terrorized towns, lived in grim, dark, towering castles and turned into bats when in trouble. Authors were simply not inspired to build a tale around the life of a vampire, his shortcomings, his doubts, his fears. Rather, authors used the vampire as a metaphor for evil that resides in humanity. Essentially, vampires were the demons inside ourselves that we had to slay.

In the 1970’s, Anne Rice reinvented the vampire genre by publishing Interview with the Vampire. Unlike other vampire novels, Interview was the life account of Louis du Pointe du Lac as an interview conducted throughout the night with a reporter recruited by Louis himself. Louis unlike the common stereotype is not a vicious killer. In fact, his tale is of his struggle to keep his humanity intact, to battle his nature and his thirst for blood. In reminiscing he introduces us to the colorful and vibrant vampire world inhabited by the likes of Lestat, Louis’ creator and lover; and Claudia, a child-vampire created by Louis and Lestat who later becomes Louis’ lover. The threesome becomes an unorthodox family unit, living in splendor and happiness. However, their happiness is not permanent as Claudia matures mentally but is forever stuck in the body of a child.

There is a striking difference between the classic vampir...

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... the charismatic, chic and sensual creatures have made their way into modern culture, the concept of vampirism has undertaken many new meanings. Meanings that are not associated with the thirst for blood and brutality, but rather a thirst for understanding. Vampires have metamorphosed into a metaphor for our human desires, needs and passions. No longer are they the metaphor for our dark side, but rather they’re an accepted part of us.

Bibliography:

Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. Randomhouse: 1976.

Tomc, Sandra. "Dieting and Damnation: Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire," Blood Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, pp. 95-113.

Waxman, Barbara Frey. “Postexistentialism in the Neo-Gothic Mode: Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.” Mosaic, Vol. 25, No. 3, Summer, 1992, pp. 79-97