Similar Theme In Frankenstein, Carmilla, And Interview with A Vampire
Throughout vampire literature and media alike a portrayal of fear and obscurity undermine the ways in which the substitute of the unmourned dead is interwoven in the plot of literature and film. In various pieces of work such as Frankenstein, Carmilla, Interview with a Vampire and others alike portray thematic references to the melancholia hints at a certain inevitability of death and the repercussion that are associated with unmourned losses, namely in occult genres. Strands of melancholic aspects of a number of vampiristic plots display how the retention of mourning by the bereaved leads to an inevitable void and continued fear which then opens the doors for vampirism to enter and melancholia to halt circulation, the dead to cross over and finally substitution to cease.
Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein, the story of Victor Frankenstein’s creation that turns into a horrific monster is an excellent portrayal of melancholia through constant dark imagery and integration of doubling that is so often associated with the destruction of beauty. Though Frankenstein’s creation technically differs from attributes of a vampire purse, the idea is more that behind Frankenstein is touching on outer limits of monstrosity, which category vampires are akin to.
Victor tells the story of his life up until the present time of the book. Right before starting college Victor’s mother died of scarlet fever, immediately after her death he moved away to college and began a new life compiled of academia and the sciences. After mastering an area of natural philosophy a professor suggests he take up the study of science. Victor puts all his time and energy into his studies, ergo keeping him from concerning himself with any matters prior to his arrival in college. Quite ironically the new scientist figures out the secret to the creation of life and constructs an animate, human-like, yet grotesque creature. This creature turns out to be a monster that kills Victor’s brother and other loved ones as his story goes on. The majority of the novel is dedicated to the recounting Victor exclaiming his guilt and anguish for the events that he inadvertently caused and the depression and loneliness it ultimately left him with.
Throughout the novel blatant melancholia is displayed through remarkably descriptive imagery, which provokes the emotions being felt by each of the three narrators (namely Victor) Shelley draws on. A constant depiction of gloom, drear, and isolation parallels and well as foreshadows the characters’ ill-founded fears. The powerful and threatening ways that the setting is constantly described mirrors, and acts as a double for the feelings and state of mind of each character in question. An exemplary example comes from chapter 10 where Victor awakes after a rainy night to find his dark, disdainful guilt had resurfaced. He describes his surroundings:
“ All of my soul-inspiriting fled with sleep, and dark melancholy clouded every thought. The rain was pouring in torrents, and thick mists his the summits of the mountains, so that I even saw not the faces of those mighty friends. Still I would penetrate their misty veil, and seek them in their cloudy retreats” (Frankenstein, 97)
The collusion of descriptive imagery alongside metaphorical interpretation worked to extend the feeling of fear and grief onto the readers of the novel.
Although the initial loss of life of Victor’s seemed to be a menial detail in the overall telling of Victor’s life story, it in fact can be looked at as (analytically) the basis of the remaining events throughout the novel. The death of his mother marked the beginning of Victor’s repression of mourning. Because Victor shields himself from mourning, he encrypts the death of his mother within himself and disallows her from physically departing. Freud discusses this in his piece, The ‘Uncanny,’ in which he asserts that when something that was once familiar but becomes alienated through repression (“the uncanny”) inevitably brings about doubling. Here, the preservation of the loss and Victor’s mother becoming and unmourned over deceased, calls for a substitute to take the place of the void that has not been filled by proper mourning. In Frankenstein’s case, his lack of mourning allowed the monster to enter in and take over his already depressing life. This unstoppable plague of melancholia that was brought about by improper mourning eradicated the insertion of the substitute- the monster into his life. Here Victor’s technical advances in natural sciences allowed him to understand the creation of life, but his insufficiency to scientific knowledge about death caused him to refuse the substitute yet still lack the ability to escape the inevitability and doom because he could not triumph to proper mourning.
Additionally, the guilt that Victor is stricken with from the killing of his brother, the execution of the families adopted daughter Justine for his brother’s murder, and eventually the murder of Elizabeth further characterizes his in ability to mourn. Without putting the loss of these loved ones at rest, he continues to inescapably come in contact with his substitute; no matter where he travels or which medium he uses to escape his current situation, Victor cannot avoid running into the monster. His incapacity to over come melancholia is surmounted by the doubling of the deceased.
Carmilla, a more traditional Vampire story by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, portrays the circulation of melancholia and the form in which it passes down as the plague of vampirism surmounts technology and is presented an open invitation through the unmourned. Like Frankenstein, the plot of Carmilla unfolds though the details of the retention of a lost mother figure for the young narrator, Laura. Laura’s susceptibility to the entrance of the vampire in her home is brought about by her incapability to let go of her mother’s death.
Laura’s improper mourning takes on a different shape than that of Victor (and many other bereaved individuals in Gothic literature). Because Laura’s mother died in her infancy her mourning is never able to take place because the lack of memory Laura has of her mother, as well as the fact that her father seems to make the death of his wife one that was heimlich, or secret in the home. Laura’s father does his best to fill the void of his daughter’s lost mother through the implementation of many servants and other female figures who instead of acting as substitutes only further subdued Laura’s memory of the woman she was connected to via her life’s blood, causing the process of repression of the loss.
Despite the amount of people that are constantly surrounding Laura in her household the unrest of her mother leads to a constant loneliness, dejected state and “ solitary life” (Carmilla, 19) for the young girl. Laura narrates the fact that the last time she felt pleased and “delightfully soothed” (Carmilla, 20) was when a beautiful young lady came to her in her sleep, yet her nature was quickly changed after she was wakened “ by a sensation as if two needles ran into [her] breast very deep at the same moment”, igniting fear, and anxiety back into her already broken world. However, after the family takes in a girl (after her and her mother were injured in a carriage accident), Laura’s age, Carmilla the melancholic spirit of Laura seems to subside. Laura’s brief stint of happiness from the acquisition of the new friend soon converges back to fear and unhappiness as Carmilla’s abrupt mood swings arise and Laura begins to dream of fiendish cat-like creatures entering her room, biting her, transforming into a woman figure and leaving. Both dreams that Laura discuss in the narrative prove to be portholes to seeing visions and what is reality more clearly. Thus, Carmilla is discovered to be a vampire predator, Countess Millacra, whom entered into the household through Laura’s depression and utter need for fulfill for the lack of motherhood in her life.
Although a condemning relationship that sends Laura further into psychological dismay as well as physical illness, she cannot seem to escape Carmilla. This being a result of her continuous inability to come to closure with the spirit of her mother, due to the unconscious hostility she feels toward her for being absent from her life and leaving her to have to endure the deprived and forlorn existence. Freud explains much of the underlying phenomenon in his story through his piece “The Taboo upon the Dead”, of which he discusses how the survivors consciously and unconsciously deal with the death and the spirit of the dead. Freud asserts that the only way to resist a substitute is to properly mourn, which involves competing over the unconscious ill-founded fear that associate the dead “as enemies”. His findings parallel the occurrences of Laura’s story as he explains that when substitutive satisfactions overcome the sense of mourning that should be enacted “they will inevitably kindle the ghost’s wrath”. (The Taboo upon the Dead, 54) Assigning Laura’s inability to mourn for the loss of her mother the unconscious hostilities that she seems to have (rather an affectionate) land her in what Freud names to be the method of projection, where the fear of “being punished by demons” (63) is brought to life and diminishes only when mourning runs its course.
Interview with a Vampire is a film adapted from the novel by Anne Rice which reenacts a man’s (Louis) first hand account through loss, fear, inability to mourn and therefore the emergence of inescapable vampirism. The depressed state that overtakes Louis after his wife and child decease catalyze the entrance of vampirism into his life and the continued unhappiness that becoming part of the undead world brings.
The plot revolves around Louis, now a 200-year-old vampire, recounting the story of his life to a news reporter. As Louis explains the unfortunate events of losing his life and child, the tone of his voice reveals his inadequacy to properly mourn. The immense affection Louis felt for his lover and his own flesh and blood (his infant child), channel into an immeasurable fear that he fosters for them as they enter into a world that is unknown and to Louis’ knowledge, the end all be all. Louis cannot overcome the loss of his loved ones resulting in them becoming a unmourned dead presences in his life. This solitude and depression (resulting from his lack of mourning) lead to substitution and, hence, the opening of doors for vampirism to take over. This is the point in which the vampire Lestat enters into Louis’ life offering to “pluck out the pain and give [him] life”. Here, melancholia is rendered through depicting the physical and psychological strains Louis felt from the pain he had been caused. His inability to go on with life creates his vulnerability
A differing representation of melancholia is depicted in Carl-Theordor Dreyer’s film Vampyr, of which is committed to working through mourning. Through the use of disorienting visual effects and a hard-to-follow plot line, Dreyer is able to use grey area (confusion) as well as physical gloom through such aspects of filmatography and Gray, the protagonist in the story, finds himself in the middle a household in which death has occurred and vampirism is beginning to take over. Gray is able to help destroy the vampire that haunts the family (two daughters of the deceased) only after he emerges from a dream of attending his own funeral and burial.
The previously discussed melancholia that arises through improper mourning and the undead leading to a substitute is obvious in this film through the absence of both the mother and of the father. The painting of this bereavement process is obvious through the sick and drear state of the daughter, Leone. The absence of understanding for what is going on in the film by the viewer mirrors much of what both Gray, Leone and Gisele feel. Leone and Gisele in having to try and comprehend the death of their last surviving parent which brings up repression of their deceased mother, and psychoanalytically, the projection of these corpses on to themselves. Additionally, Leone becomes more and more sick after fresh bite wounds appear on her neck. Gray, not having felt the obvious and actual death of a loved one is perhaps the most fearful and he has been placed in a situation where he must take over and reclaim the projection and put the vampire to rest. The uncertainty that comes with Leone lying on (what seems to be) her deathbed, and Gray attending and viewing his own funeral from inside a coffin are only a few of the scenes that instill fear and create visuals that evoke responses associated with the news of death. Here, Dreyer is setting up the film as one that is dark and depressing as such horror films usually are, but also includes the refusal of the substitution and the conquering of the vampire, after Gray is able to put to rest the part of himself that identified with deceased. Dryer gives a visual depiction of changes we undergo and the struggle of putting to rest loss or disruption at out door (thoughts, visualizations, etc)
Instances of melancholy can be identified in nearly all works pertaining to conquest of monstrosity and vampirism. In the previous works discussed, the depressed state that followed the loss of a loved one was represented through the means of a long narrative and film to render the intensity of the fearful and vulnerable state that the victims of vampirism were left in. However, shorter version of narrative explore and construct melancholia by focusing less on the events leading up to the invitation of vampirism and more on the victims perseverance to resist the substitute, as well as foreshadowing ill-fated events. The Spider by Hanns Heinz Ewers is the story of a young student; Richard Broquemont who moves into an apartment in which the seven previous tenants were found hung from the window pain. The story conveys darkness and Richard begins to reduce his studies for his only pass time of staring out the window, into the window of what he believes to be a woman who mirrors his every move. The “game” he plays with her is entrancing and he cannot escape it, similar to the inescapability that vampirism imposes on its prey. Richard makes note that “books meant nothing to me any longer” (The Spider, 153) and continues to fall deeper into ‘the game’ with the seductress as he starts to fear the repercussions that might follow if he does not play along. As he begins to resist, he is submitted into the world of the dead. When the body is discovered a spider is found crushed between Richard’s teeth. And it is soon realized that the image that Richard had become entranced by was none other than the doubling of himself, his reflection.
Spiders are more generally associated with vampirism or as dark predators themselves. In psychoanalytic discourses the spider is the symbol for the phallic mother. Ewers is therefore assigning the role of Richard’s substitute to the spider. Unlike the other discussed works, The Spider does not come out and prescribe the person that Richard is missing in his life. This rather leave the reader to imply that Richard must be unconsciously have repressed hostility towards, in which Freud attributes as improper mourning and unconscious fear of that deceased loved one, equaling the invitation for the substitute which brings about further depression.
In the short story entitled The Horla, the author Guy de Maupassant writes in first person in the form of a diary. Here, Maupassant channels his own troubled thoughts through the narrator. The narrator reflects on the feelings and anguish that occur when a ‘Horla’ haunts him. He exclaims the physical pain that coming into contact with this creature has plagued upon him and the illness that begins to drive him mad. The fear and depression that overtakes him after waving to a passing three-mast boat, which unconsciously gives an invitation for the supernatural take over of creature. Finally, when the narrator realizes that the creature who was inflicting the pain on him was that of a vampire that was aboard the ship that he had previously waved to.
While this story does not implore the same exploration and implementation of the vampire into the life of a bereaved individual, it serves to explore the more general concept of the vampiric possession into ones life. The narrator’s accounts of how his exact feelings and thoughts during his time of mental and physical instability provide the reader with proof of how susceptible an individual is when fear and distress are present. This fact is establishes through conveying the narrator a very normal individual who seems to be randomly stricken with the vampiric plague. Because the reader is only able to ‘see’ what the narrator does, the unconscious feelings that the narrator does not know exist, pertaining to his susceptibility to possession, are also not understood by the reader and his symptoms are seen as uncanny.
Further analysis proves that much of the events of the narrator were reenactments of similar occurrences in the authors life. Mental illness and syphilis caused the psychological and physical pain that is exuded through the story and pervades the realistic essence that Maupassant puts within in reach of supernatural events to prove they are not so far disassociated; especially when looked at psychoanalytically.
The discussed examples and countless other pieces of gothic and occult literature convey melancholia and its association with projection, the doubly missing link between unrest mourning and the phantom possession. Retention of loss and the more general repression of unconscious feelings most commonly comes into play from the fate of the unmourned dead. Constant analogies in the media mass follow many the theories of Freud and his ideas of the projection that is comes forth via pathological mourning. Much of the technical media analogies have similar plots and way that they exhibit melancholia. While other incorporate the vampire and mourning without paralleling the steps of incapable mourning, unmourned, undead and then inevitable invitation to vampire (or monster figure). While literal imagery, literary devices and formal artifact differ from story to story the uncertainty about the borders between life and death and the cultural apprehension over crossing over, ultimately lead to out demise.
