Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Carmilla

I very much enjoyed the reading of Carmilla this week. It was one of those stories that I couldn't put down until I finished it. It was easy enough to understand and I liked learning about the mystery of Carmilla as the story went on. One thing that stuck out to me while I was reading, was the reaction of the victims after they had been bit my Carmilla, or Mircalla. Apart from the Twilight book series, I have never read any other Vampire novel. Because of this, the only picture I had in my head that would happen after someone was bitten was a body writhing in pain, screaming for help from the extreme burning sensation they were feeling. The way Le Fanu wrote it was very different. Before bitten by the vampire, the victim experiences things I would have thought would come after. It seems the mere presence of Carmilla also know as Mircalla effects the person she takes an interest in. First of all, the girl will “lose her looks and heath” but no source of the illness can be found (Le Fanu 304). Then they are “visited by appalling dreams; then... by a spectre, sometimes resembling Mircalla [Carmilla], sometimes in the shape of a beast, indistinctly seen, walking round the foot of [their] bed, from side to side” (Le Fanu 304). After this all has happened, the victim experiences sensations, “one, not unpleasant, but very peculiar” that “resembled the flow of an icy stream against her breast” (Le Fanu 305). I'm gonna throw out my opinion that this is from the cold body temperature of the vampire. This is when the bite actually takes place. The victim feels “something like a pair of large needles pierce [them], a little below the throat, with a very sharp pain. A few nights after, followed a gradual and convulsive sense of strangulation; then came unconsciousness” (Le Fanu 305). Both Laura and the General's daughter experienced the exact same occurrences, but Laura did not die from them like the General's daughter. I would have thought being bitten by a vampire would have come with a lot more pain and suffering than what was described in the book. Unlike the Twilight series, the girls were not in complete agony after they had been bitten nor did they feel a burning sensation. While it's quite terrible that the General's daughter died, what she and Laura both went through seemed somewhat peaceful. While reading, I did not get the sense that Laura was in a great deal of pain nor was she suffering. She seemed blissfully unaware of what Carmilla was and what she was doing to her. I think the love and the attraction blinded Laura and did not allow her to figure out what was happening to her until the General filled in the blanks. Overall it was surprising to read about the process one of Carmilla's victims goes through before and after being bitten by the vampire.

5 comments:

  1. I like how the death scenes or experiences were described. I think that it still adds to the mystery of vampires in general but also to Carmilla. It seems to me that the victims believe they are having these dreams but it is actually happening and maybe they think its a dream because its to unusual for this to be happening. It seems like the way in which the victims die in this story versus Twilight is all open to inpretation. I think its all about adding mystery to the thought of a vampire so not having necessarily the consistency which makes it even more intriguing.

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  2. When you talk about how easy this book was to read I completely agree. When reading Wuthering heights I had a really tough time because of the language that it was written in. When I saw how long ago Carmilla was written I became worried that the same thing would happen. However I was mistaken and Carmilla was very easy to read and very easy to understand.

    I too find it interesting that you bring up the part about how Laura and the other victims reacted to being bitten. I too noticed the variance between the different vampire stories. You bring up how in Twilight getting bitten by a vampire automatically turns you into one but in the Sookie Stackhouse books/True Blood Series they use the sucking of blood both as a sexual experience and to gain strength and togetherness.

    It’s interesting that you say, “While reading, I did not get the sense that Laura was in a great deal of pain nor was she suffering. She seemed blissfully unaware of what Carmilla was and what she was doing to her. I think the love and the attraction blinded Laura and did not allow her to figure out what was happening to her until the General filled in the blanks.” I think that it was mostly Carmilla’s influence over Laura that numbed the pain. All of the love and attraction was all played up by Carmilla’s powers over her. The idea that these vampire bites did not hurt that much could also be so that they can feed longer before they get caught. I mean if it was like Twilight all these people would be in excruciating pain and I think that they would figure out what was happening faster.

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  3. I’m definitely with you on the readability of this book. Wuthering Heights had me pretty confused most of the time. With the books language being so old, I found myself reading and re-reading passages fairly often. However, I didn’t really have that problem with Carmilla.

    I also found the ‘process’ of Carmilla’s victims to be really interesting. The way that it was described was really interesting. It was really descriptive, but at the same time, it always had a mysterious nature about it. I thought that the following passage which you included was a good example of this. “After this all has happened, the victim experiences sensations, “one, not unpleasant, but very peculiar” that “resembled the flow of an icy stream against her breast” (Le Fanu 305). I was also more used to the effects of a vampire’s bite to only affect the victim after the actual bite, so this was definitely an interesting change of pace.

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  4. "I think the love and the attraction blinded Laura and did not allow her to figure out what was happening to her until the General filled in the blanks."

    I'm wondering if we couldn't also tie in Laura's "peaceful" resignation toward her situation to what Heller says on page 79 in "The Vampire in the House." She writes,

    "In 'Carmilla,' sexual knowledge is an important aspect of the story of hysterical contagion whereby one hysterical girl infects, and creates, another. For, while critics have read Carmilla's murderous designs on Laura as sexual advances, it is equally important that the would-be victim's narrative reveals an ambivalent, but still pronounced, awareness of her attraction to the woman who tries to kill her."

    I think Heller raises some interesting questions in this statement. To what extent is Laura "innocent"? To what extent is she unaware of her attraction to Carmilla? Why isn't Laura more resistant to Carmilla? Is it because she wants to become a vampire, and, to extend Heller's reading, a lesbian? I think slarson is right to bring up the sexual nature of "blood sucking" as a means to "gain strength and togetherness." Could we see the exchange of fluids between Carmilla and Laura as symbolic of some sort of sexual exchange?

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  5. I agree with you when you said "I would have thought being bitten by a vampire would have come with a lot more pain and suffering than what was described in the book." I always assumed that being bitten by a vampire would be a terrible experience. Just getting blood drawn causes people to become light headed and sick to their stomach. A vampire is like an animal and the person is getting physically attacked so I would just assume that it would be more painful than getting blood drawn.

    IN response to Colleen's question "to what extent is Laura innocent? To what extent is she unawaure of her attraction to Carmilla?", I think that she was actually aware of the attraction. She even said that she was developing feelings for Carmilla.

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