Carter and Lefanu

8/2/2019 Carter and Lefanu

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/carter-and-lefanu 1/5

Ana Elisa Rubio Juárez Samperio

307506461

Dra. Aurora Piñeiro

Seminario de Literatura Gótica I

Ancestor and Descendant

“The Lady of the House of Love”, the short story written by Angela Carter is not

only a mixture of fairy tales with gothic literature but it is also a wonderful blend of

the classic story of “The Sleeping Beauty” and the novella by Sheridan le Fanu

Carmilla. Le fanu’s work has travelled the world more than once, has being

translated to many languages, adapted several times and it is one of the key texts

on which the vampire myth is built; baring this background in mind it is no surprise

that Carter would had choose this material for her rewritings of Perrault’s fairy

tales.

Besides the long list of gothic elements and characteristics that Carter’s tale

has, there are clear connections specifically with Carmilla. Dealing with female

vampires and gothic elements and characteristics always guides us towards le

Fanu’s creature because it was the first universally known text which such a

protagonist, and so it became the role model of lady vampires. But being one of

hipotexts is not the only reason why the young and beautiful vampire of Carter’s

tale is connected with le Fanu’s, In fact we can think about them as if they were



relatives, being Carmilla the ancestor of “the Countess”, at moments even as if

they were the same literary creature.

One of the first aspects that a reader will notice would be the setting: the land in

which “the Countess” is trapped is very similar to the description of the village in

Karnstein where Carmilla is finally confronted. That it is a gothic setting is evident,

because of the solitude, darkness and decay with which is painted; but it is also the

reflection of a first gothic scenery: the village is deserted, supposedly because of

the vampiric plague that fell on its habitants, no soul has lived there in a long time

and the castle of Karnstein once magnificent, is entirely in ruins. On Carter’s text

we have this image:

At last the revenants became so troublesome the peasants abandoned

the village and it fell solely into the possession of subtle and vindictive

inhabitants who manifest their presences by shadows, even at midday,

their shadows that have no source in anything visible;[…] Now all shun

the village below the châteu in which the beautiful somnambulist

helplessly perpetuates her ancestral crimes. (Carter 195)

We can see the similarities in the deserted village, the destroyed castle and the

inhabitants that were erase to left behind them victims transformed into the carriers

of the same sickness that killed them. But also we have a similar atmosphere

constructed by the constant playing with lights and shadows, which gives us a

sense of darkness and menace, the same we feel in Le Fanu’s novella when the

group of characters arrive to Karnstein land; only this time we get that feeling since

the very beginning of the story. We concluded that the same habitants that were

corrupted by the plague are the inhabitant shadows of Carter’s deserted village,

the castle might be the same castle, and if the vampire cannot be the same



following Le Fanu’s storyline in which Carmilla is destroyed at the end; this new

lady vampire can easily be her descendant.

The title by which both vampires are known is also a strong connection between

them. Carmilla’s real title is Countess of Karnstein, and Carter’s creature is only

known as “Countess” or “the Somnambulist”. We can see how the title as well as

the kingdom mentioned above has been inherited by Carmilla’s successor. For

Carmilla this title had to be felt but not pronounced: she has the breeding, manners

and behavior of a Countess but revealing her title as it is, would mean to reveal her

age and nature. In contrast to the Countess in “The Lady of the House of Love” the

title is everything; it gives her a position, a kingdom among damned creatures, a

life style and a destiny, one that she is constantly fighting with through her constant

reading of the Tarot cards. The title chains her to a monstrous nature, as that same

title for Carmilla is the key to reveal that nature, the name is what defines both of

them as vampires, with all the imaginary behind vampires.

The Somnambulism is another feature that joins them. In the novella the

somnambulism is the “solution” that Laura’s father gives to the riddle of the

Carmilla’s nocturnal escapes, it is the excuse they unconsciously use for h er

unnatural powers. The sickness is what allows her, even with her strange behavior,

to pass as a human being. In the short story “the Somnambulist” is the other name

with which the Countess is called. If we follow the line of comparison between the

state of being a vampire and the somnambulism as sicknesses, we get to the

conclusion that this is the name of the vampiric legacy that has been bestowed on

the Countess.



As the story advances we meet the Countess’ victim: a young Englishman

which beauty, naivety and virginity link him to Laura. Laura often describes with her

own voice:

Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably towards the beautiful stranger.

I did feel, as she said, "drawn towards her," but there was also something

of repulsion. In this ambiguous feeling, however, the sense of attraction

immensely prevailed. (Le Fanu).

Her attraction as well as her repulsion for Carmilla is reflected in the young

rationalist that changes the fate of the Countess. The difference between them lies

in the use of worlds that the second has to express the same emotion. He

contrasts positive images that are related with incomparable beauty, with negative

images that relate with dead or decay, such as “scarecrow”, “death’s head”,

“shipwrecked bride”, “whore” and “decay”. He has the sensation of awe and

amazement that Laura felt when he first saw Carmilla towards her descendant,

which shares her extraordinary beauty and her un-dead features, which had been

exaggerated in the Countess because she has not experience a human normal life

except for a few years.

Both victims are marked by the love of these vampires. Laura by the constant

proves of affection and even actual declarations often made by Carmilla, in an

example of a homosexual relationship and desire which transgresses all the

boundaries of the time when it was published; and the rational bicyclist by the

“Lovers” card, a crucial change in her routine that changes the Countess destiny

and finally destroys the bloodline. This love is the damnation of the first one since

this is the victim that she loved and the one that “got away”. But love is also the



salvation of the second one since she never wished to be the “queen of the

vampires” or “the last bud of the poison tree that sprang from the loins of Vlad the

Impaler”; that change of cards meant her freedom.

The differences between Carmilla and the Countess are many but the main one

is the way in which each of them ended their existence, the Countess finding the

redemption that Carmilla never knew. She quitted her title by ending her existence

voluntarily, instead of feeding on the only human that had made a difference for

her. As Le Fanu through Laura explains: Mircalla seemed to be limited to a name

which, if not her real one, should at least reproduce, without the omission or

addition of a single letter, those, as we say, anagrammatically, which compose it

(Le Fanu); Carmilla’s title was not her only chain but the letters of her name are the

worst limitations of her being, from which she could never escape. Her descendant

did. Carter’s Countess evolves and surpass her ancestor exerting her free will and

becoming free by herself.

Carter and Lefanu

Documents

Transcript of Carter and Lefanu