carmilla: the world's first vampire
- paigenherbooks
- Dec 13, 2023
- 5 min read
5/5
Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is a fantastic novel. It's atmospheric, it's tense, it's sexy, and it's feminine. Being the real first vampire novel, Carmilla focuses on the homosexual tension between Carmilla, our manipulative and obsessive vampire, and our innocent and pure Laura. A novel written by a man about women, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu tried to craft a story that showcased the disgust that Laura and quite frankly, the world had (or has) at the thought of woman sexuality, fatale, sexual prowress and appeal, but comically failed. Instead La Fanu delievered a novel that is oozing in sexual tension, dipped in vampiric delights, and topped off with an atmosphere of the feminie that had me on my knees. A novel that was short, compact, but thematically dense, Carmilla has become one of my favorites.
Synopsis: Isolated in a remote mansion in a central European forest, Laura longs for companionship--until a carriage accident brings another young woman into her life: the secretive and sometimes erratic Carmilla. As Carmilla's actions become more puzzling and volatile, Laura develops bizarre symptoms, and as her health goes into decline, Laura and her father discover something monstrous.
For a very short novel, at 139 pages, I have quite a lot to say. A novel this grand deserves to be spoken about.
The Novel Itself.
Focusing purley on the story and not looking any deeper, Carmilla is a great read. It's short, snappy, and very atmospheric. I read her after Dracula and during the cold front of October and it was a reader heaven. The story pulls you in with introducing lonely and yearning Laura and just as quickly introduces our "antagonist" and vampire character, the beautiful and enamorring Carmilla. The two hit it off instantly, creating a friendship that most women can relate to or wish for. But within pages, Laura starts to realize that there might be more to Carmilla than she originally thought. The story progresses and then ends with a snap.
Coming off of just reading Dracula, it was incredibly easy to see the similarities in the story and where and what Stoker decided to pick up for his own vampire story. I loved it. I was drawn in and captivated much like young Laura. Carmilla has a way about her that I adored and honestly, who could blame Laura for falling for the mysterious and slightly dangerous woman. Though the story is short, I never felt as if I didn't get enough to feel satisfyied. Even though conclusions are found quite quickly due to the length, the pacing and composition of the story was done in a way that set the story up for success, rather than failure.
Again, I loved it.
I read it in one candle lit, mood lighting, comfy blanket sitting.
Carmilla & Laura
These two were an interesting concept of a couple to me. With the context of the history behind the novel, it is documentated and stated that the male author was tyring to, basically "out" or comment on two women he either knew in real life or had heard about. Le Fanu was trying his damnested to write a story where "Laura" was digusted by Carmilla's advances and was only under her spell due to the fact that Carmilla was a mythical killing monster.
He failed.
The story reads with tension and an anticipation from Laura that can only be described as a want, need, and yearning for Carmilla, in every aspect of the definition of the phrase. Though it should be acknowledged that the story that the author gave us was devoid of quite a lot of the source material. Letters containing the real "Laura's" thoughts and feelings have been cast away for instead a reading of them through the lens of disgust at the nature of her feelings. While some can read the story and be sucked into the world where Laura is "grossed out" by Carmilla and her feelings, I would wager that an incompetant and ignorant read of the story. WIth the background knowlege and any deeper critical thinking skills, it makes the story ten times better and more meaningful knowing that a man tried to wipe away women sexuality and again, failed.
Sure, read Laura's "horrors" as just that, but reading it with the context and recongizing that perhaps Laura is in horror of the fact that these are new and exicitng, yet devestating dangerous feelings are coming to the rise and she simply can't figure out what to make of them. That version, and way of viewing the story leads to a deeper and more intense look and conversation surrounding the novel, vampires, women, rlationships, sexuality...the list goes on and on.
On a very surface level thought, Carmilla and Laura's characters a yin and yang of eachother. Laura is sweet, and kind, soft spoken and slow to anger.
The "perfect woman".
While Carmilla is "too" beauitful, "too" forward, quick to anger, and outspoken, an obvious blight on man's earth and has to be a creature of the night, because we all know no good respectful woman would every have outright feelings towards sex, women, or the church. There's nothing wrong with Laura, and if you identify with Laura I commend you. Though it is pertinent to acknowlede that Carmilla brings out a side of Laura that she is not used to, and in my opinion, the author has decided to label as a "sickeness". Laura falls "ill" due to being around Carmilla, reading into that we can look further and see that maye Laura was growing into herself and the people around her figured she must be "ill", to be behaving in such a way.
Very reminisent of women being lobotomized or sent to the seaside for having opinions or reading. In a world full of Laura's seen through the male gaze, be a Carmilla that pisses them off enough to write a diss novel about you.
I wish it wasn't so, but to write and review Carmilla one must also compare her to Dracula. I find it interesting that Bram Stoker has taken the crown for creating the "first" vampire story when in reality Le Fanu's beat him by quite a bit. My thoughts on this concern the gender of the main characters. Dracula is a male, with a male centered cast, save Lucy and our wonderful Mina ( I love her), that focuses on the men fixing the issue and being slightly if not sometimes agressivley sexist to Mina. Whereas Carmilla focuses more on a female centered relationship, see what I'm getting at? That being said, I did enjoy really Dracula and I adored Carmilla, the two have quite a lot of similarities. With how they describe vampires, the flow of the story, even the character archtypes that they follow. If I had to sum it up, I would say that Dracula is vampires through the male gaze and Carmilla is through (if you choose to read it that way) the female gaze.
Two stories that have the same source material yet touch on a wide variety of different topics, feelings, plotlines, and themes. I imagine that Bram Stoker and La Fanu chat quite alot about their novels in the afterlife, all in good fun. The one thing I really did enjoy about Carmilla that I felt Dracula lacked in some sense was the actual time spent with the vampire. In Stoker's story, Dracula is very centric to the plot in the beginning of the novel, but starts to fade away, becoming a shadow for the remaining of it, until the end, whereas Carmilla has our beautiful vampire front and center the entire novel. In my opinion, it gave a different feeling and atmosphere, as if the danger was truly right there, instead of across a sea somewhere.
Carmilla was snappy, thematic, and the perfect read for a dark academia vampire loving girl. I highly reccomend the read, it's short and excessivley engaging, with themes and conversations that will last far past the page count.
She may have something on Edward Cullen.
Happy reading🕯️⚰️
xoxo,
paige
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