Le Fanu: Relationship Between Carmilla And Laura

Le Fanu uses the relationship between Carmilla and Laura to express that women have a powerful and threatening force of sexuality. Throughout the story, Carmilla manipulates Laura’s emotions by acting erotic, compelling and mysterious. Carmilla exerts a sexual force over Laura that is inexplicable and uncontrollable, which makes it extremely threatening to Laura. Carmilla’s sexual power gives her the power to attract Laura in an unfathomable way, making Laura experience both feelings of attraction and feelings of panic. Not knowing what will happen each night and not being able to explain the feelings she is feeling gives Laura a sense of anxiety throughout the book.
From the moment they first encounter each other, when Carmilla came to Laura in a dream in her childhood, Laura thinks of Carmilla as a

mysterious figure. When they first meet in person later in life, Carmilla draws Laura’s attention immediately. In the first day of their relationship, Laura is attracted to her and feels and recognizes Carmilla from her dream, which draws them closer together. However, she also feels a sense of emotional conflict. “I did feel, as she said, ‘drawn towards her’, but there was also something of repulsion. In this ambiguous feeling, however, the sense of if attraction immensely prevailed. She interested and won me; she was so beautiful and so indescribably engaging” (Le Fanu 260). Throughout the rest of the story, Laura continues to feel emotionally disoriented when she thinks about her feelings towards Carmilla. Laura attempts to learn about Carmilla’s life so that their relationship can grow, however Carmilla keeps this information secret. This mystery contributes to the mixed feelings that Laura has, but it also can contribute to the looming power that Carmilla has over Laura because Laura inadvertently finds herself desiring someone who she knows very little about. Laura attempts to rationalize her feelings towards Carmilla, by inferring that she is a male in disguise, however she is never able to justify her intense, mixed feelings. This is because Carmilla’s sexual power is inexplicable and powerful, making it threatening to Laura.
Carmilla’s sexual power threatens Laura because she has no power over it.

Although Laura is very aware of her emotions, she has little power over them, because Carmilla exerts a sexual force over Laura that she cannot control. Laura’s feeling of not being in control stems from the fact that many of her encounters with Carmilla occur while she is sleeping, where Laura is unaware of what is going on. She feels pain, stabbing, and haunting images, and Laura cannot explain these dreams. After experiencing many of these “dreams”, or the threatening nighttime encounters with Carmilla, Laura starts to lock her bedroom door and leave the light on while she sleeps in attempt to protect herself from these occurrences. “But my dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.” (Le Fanu 260) Just after Laura has taken these precautions, she experiences a “dream” full of stabbing feelings in her breast and female figures. Laura is aware that this sexual threat comes into her room that is more powerful than the measures she uses to protect

herself.
Le Fanu expresses that falling victim to sexual power parallels becoming diseased, as the further Carmilla and Laura’s relationship progresses, the more ill Laura becomes. He associates the horrifying and radical idea of vampirism with the idea of female sexual power, which was seen as just as radical in Le Fanu’s time. The entirety of the story shows Laura seeking to rationalize her experience, but she is never successful, showing that Le Fanu finds Carmilla’s power curious and inexplicable.
Le Fanu fills Carmilla with radical ideas for the 1800s, such as lesbianism and vampirism, but the most radical idea of all is the power that he gives Carmilla. The most shocking overarching concept of the story is Laura’s anxiety over her dreams and emotions. Le Fanu uses this story to illustrate that female sexual power can contaminate society, as it is extremely manipulative and uncontrollable.