Interview with a Vampire

The relationships portrayed in this book are quite interesting. They are very telling of the overall themes it presents. Throughout most of the story Louis spends his time agonizing over internal conflicts on morality and his existence; He tends to project these onto others to fit certain roles within his life. For example, he considers Lestat to be a sort of “higher power” that can punish him for his wrongdoings and alleviate his sins. Louis would rather be “thoroughly damned" rather than seek forgiveness or redemption. Being damned requires less effort than redeeming oneself through action, after all.

         Lestat, on the other hand, is completely detached from human emotion. This highlights the contrast between Louis and Lestat. Lestat has completely given in to his vampire nature, while Louis clings to his humanity. Louis and Lestat represent a double-edged sword: one refuses to examine his nature, the other obsesses about it, yet neither actually understands himself.

         Later, the addition of Claudia to the “family” brings another layer to Louis’ relationships and general outlook on life. Overall, he will have tremendously mixed emotions about Claudia. Even though he was partly responsible for taking away her humanity and feels guilty about her existence, she reminds him about his humanity and makes him feel love. As Claudia ages the love relationship between her and Louis becomes complicated. The innocent father-daughter relationship develops into something resembling a romantic relationship, although not sexual. All Louis wants is to make her happy. Despite giving Lestat time and opportunity, he couldn’t be the benevolent, guiding "creator" Louis and Claudia long for. Without a benevolent creator, Louis clings to Claudia as the only escape from the crippling loneliness of immortality.

         Armand is another key character in Louis’ life. He is the "creator" of Louis’ dreams—a powerful being, here to take away Louis's responsibility, to free him from an obligation to a higher power. Armand is an intelligent, detached vampire who uses logic to unravel Louis's arguments, and can help Louis get rid of his lingering guilt of wanting to be punished for his sins. Louis makes the choice to make a companion for Claudia to give himself the luxury of spending eternity passively following Armand, and experience a deeper love with him instead.

         Armand craves Louis's human curiosity and soul searching because it allows him to engage in the modern world. Armand's desire forces Louis to choose between his two loves, basically having to confront his duality and choose which "nature" to embrace, human or vampire. Yet, after Claudia’s murder, Louis loses what little humanity he had left. Louis becomes like any other vampire: an observer. He no longer feels attachment to anyone or anything. Armand’s impression of Louis also changes, even though he was the one who caused it. Louis says goodbye to both Armand and Lestat, in the same detached, unemotional way. Both "creator" vampires have spent the novel urging Louis to embrace his vampire essence, but when he does, they are stunned by the heartbreak it causes both of them.

Frankenstein

A great example of a gothic element that is at the heart of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is the concept of something that is Taboo. A taboo is a social or religious custom prohibiting or forbidding discussion of a particular practice. These are very prominent in gothic literature as the characters tend to be pushed to extremes while they investigate their limits. Gothic protagonists free themselves from the rules set by society in search of their own intense and selfish desires.

There are many taboos present in this novel, one of the more obvious ones being Victor attempting to usurp God’s power of creation, as well as the woman’s role, when he sets out to create the monster. By creating life and playing the role of God, Frankenstein is effectively breaking the first Christian commandment which states “You shall have no other gods before me”. He has become his own god and completely disregarded his society's main religion. There are also other taboos such as grave robbing, murder, implied incest, and going against the societal norms.

The novel Frankenstein is well-grounded in a realistic world; that is partly why it is so compelling and fits within its gothic nature, we feel as though it is a thing that could actually happen in our world. It explores the role of society and the individual and is a literary case study for the nature vs nurture debate. As we read the novel and see these taboos being committed, we are horrified yet intrigued. Our curiosity is peaked as we eagerly read on to see what fate has in store for those who embrace these desires that society deems as wrong.

Classic Horror Tropes:

-Old, dark house
-Nightmares
-Taboos
-Architecture (Old house, spiral staircase, etc)
-Solitude
-Night, Full Moon
-Creepy Paintings
-Creepy Music