Seductive Kindness: Power, Space and “Lesbian” Vampires

Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-62782-3_12

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…In the 20 th Century, the image of female vampires was transformed, especially as lesbian and bisexual vampires, into a film metaphor of vampirism in popular culture (Heller-Nicholas, 2017). Le Fanu especially contributed to this image of a homosexual vampire, with Carmilla being prominent in her beautiful, seductive appearance and self-controlled, contemplative acts.…”

Section: Literary Work About Female Adolescent Vampiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Le Fanu especially contributed to this image of a homosexual vampire, with Carmilla being prominent in her beautiful, seductive appearance and self-controlled, contemplative acts. Specifically, these figurative features have influenced queer descriptions in films about lesbian and bisexual female vampires (Heller-Nicholas, 2017), as evidenced in Lambert Hiller's Dracula 's Daughter (1936), Roy Ward Baker's The Vampire Lovers (1970), Harry Kümel's Daughters of Darkness (1971), Jesús Fraco's Vampyros Lesbos (1971, Tony Scott's The Hunger (1983), and Brest Wood's The Unwanted (2014).…”

Section: Literary Work About Female Adolescent Vampiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Freud’s A Case of Hysteria (Dora): Establishing Identity in Hysteria Discourse

Oki¹

2022

JHASS

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This paper aims to analyze the queer constellation between the female narrator and vampire in Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla (1872/2010) in the context of hysteria discourse. Specifically, this paper highlights that the vampirism in Le Fanu's novella represents the unconscious and hysterical, as related to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical theory in A Case of Hysteria (Dora) (1905/2013). Considering that literary images of female vampires have a long tradition, this paper reviews the literary works on female protagonist vampires in chronological order. Then, Laura's pathological existence is explored in comparison with Freud's theory on hysteria. This paper's target characters, Laura, Carmilla, and Dora, are all remarkably in their adolescence and on the way to establishing their identities. Moreover, as Freud defined, dreams represent repressed wishes. In this context, Laura's unforgettable and frequent childhood dream is analyzed in the context of her queer desire, as evidenced by her openly inviting Carmilla to her schloss in Styria. Thus, this paper considers these two young women's "dual existence" as an interaction between the conscious (Laura's intellectual writing) and unconscious (Carmilla's vampiric desire). Finally, this paper discusses Laura's subject-position as the authorial narrator of the novella. Different from Freud's patient Dora, who cannot find her identity autonomously and interrupts Freud's cure, resulting in the study's fragmented ending, Laura establishes her subject independently by writing a story about her doppelganger Carmilla without Doctor Hesselius' diagnosis. Laura's emancipated position as the authorial narrator is underlined, whereby she reconstructs her fragmented reminiscence.

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Section: Literary Work About Female Adolescent Vampiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literary Work About Female Adolescent Vampiresmentioning

confidence: 99%