Carmilla

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Carmilla is a Gothic novella by Joseph Sheridan le Fanu. First published in 1872, it tells the story of a young woman's susceptability to the attentions of a female vampire named Carmilla. Carmilla predates Bram Stoker's Dracula by over twenty years and had a strong influence on Stoker's famous novel and has been adapted many times for cinema.

Illustration from The Dark Blue by D.H. Friston, 1872

1 Publication
2 Plot
3 Influence
4 Bram Stoker's Dracula
5 Carmilla in culture
- 5.1 Films
- 5.2 References in popular culture
6 External links

[edit] Publication

Carmilla was first published in the magazine The Dark Blue in 1872, and then in the author's collection of short stories, In a Glass Darkly the same year. The story ran in The Dark Blue in three issues; January (1872), pp. 592-606; February (1872), pp. 701-714; and March (1872), pp. 59-78.

There were two original illustrators for the story, both of which appeared in the magazine but which do not appear in modern printings of the book. The two illustrators, D. H. Friston and M. Fitzgerald, show some inconsistencies in their depiction of the characters, and as such some confusion has arisen in identifying the pictures as part of a continuous plot.

[edit] Plot

A wealthy English widower, retired from the Austrian Service, moves to a stately castle in Styria with his daughter Laura. When she is six years old, Laura has a vision of a beautiful visitor in her bedchamber. She later claims to have been bitten on the chest, although no wounds are found on her.

Twelve years later, Laura and her father are admiring the sunset in front of the castle when her father tells her of a letter he received earlier from his friend General Spielsdorf. The General was supposed to bring his niece to visit the two, but the niece suddenly died under mysterious circumstances. The General ambiguously concludes that he will discuss the circumstances in detail when they meet later.

Laura is saddened by the loss of a potential friend, and longs for a companion. A carriage accident outside Laura's home unexpectedly brings a girl of Laura's age into the family's care. Her name is Carmilla. Both girls instantly recognize the other from the 'dream' they both had when they were young.

Carmilla appears injured after her carriage accident, but her mysterious mother informs Laura's father that her journey is urgent and cannot be delayed. She arranges to leave her daughter with Laura and her father until she can return in three months. Before she leaves she sternly notes that her daughter will not disclose any information whatsoever about her family, past, or herself and that Carmilla is of sound mind. Laura comments that this information seems needless to say, and her father laughs it off.

Carmilla and Laura grow to be very close friends, but occasionally Carmilla's mood abruptly changes. She sometimes makes unsettling romantic advances towards Laura. Carmilla refuses to tell anything about herself or her background, despite questioning from Laura. Her secrecy isn't the only mysterious thing about her. Carmilla sleeps much of the day, and seems to sleepwalk at night. When a funeral procession passes by the two girls and Laura begins singing a hymn, Carmilla bursts out in rage and scolds Laura for singing a Christian song. When a shipment of family heirloom portraits arrives at the castle, Laura finds one of her ancestor, Countess Mircalla Karnstein, dated two centuries before. The portrait resembles Carmilla exactly, down to the mole on her neck.

During Carmilla's stay, Laura has nightmares of a fiendish cat-like beast entering her room at night and biting her on the chest. The beast then takes the form of a female figure and disappears through the door without opening it. Laura's health declines and her father has a doctor examine her. He speaks privately with her father and only asks that Laura never be left unattended.

Her father then sets out with Laura in a carriage for the ruined village of Karnstein. They leave a message behind asking Carmilla and one of the governesses entreated to follow after once the perpetually late-sleeping Carmilla wakes up. En route to Karnstein, Laura and her father encounter General Spielsdorf. He tells them his own ghastly story.

Spielsdorf and his niece had met a young woman named Millarca and her enigmatic mother at a costume ball. The General's niece was immediately taken with Millarca. The "Countess" convinced the General that she was an old friend of his and asked that Millarca be allowed to stay with them for three weeks while she attended to a secret matter of great importance.

The General's niece fell mysteriously ill and suffered exactly the same symptoms as Laura. After consulting with a priestly doctor who he had specially ordered, the General came to the realization that his niece was being visited by a vampire. He hid in a closet with a sword and waited until seeing a fiendish cat-like creature stalk around his niece's bedroom and bite her on the neck. He then leapt from his hiding place and attacked the beast, which took the form of Millarca. She fled through the locked door, unharmed. The General's niece died immediately afterward.

When they arrive at Karnstein the General asks a nearby woodsman where he can find the tomb of Mircalla Karnstein, so that he may remove her head and end the nightmare. The woodsman relates that the tomb was relocated long ago, by the hero who vanquished the vampires that haunted the region. He goes to find his master who knows of all the monuments of the Karnstein family.

While the General and Laura are left alone in the ruined chapel, Carmilla appears. The General and Carmilla both fly into a rage upon seeing each other and the General attacks her with an axe. Carmilla flees and the General explains to Laura that Carmilla is also Millarca, both anagrams for the original name of the vampire Countess Mircalla Karnstein.

The ordeal ends when the Countess's body is exhumed and destroyed.

[edit] Influence

Carmilla, the title character, is the original prototype for a legion of female (and often lesbian) vampires. Though Le Fanu portrays his vampire's sexuality with the circumspection that one would expect for his time, the reader can be pretty sure that lesbian attraction is the main dynamic between Carmilla and the narrator of the story:

Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, 'You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever'. (Carmilla, Chapter 4).

Carmilla selected exclusively female victims, though only became emotionally involved with a few. Carmilla had nocturnal habits, but was not confined to the darkness. She had unearthly beauty and was able to change her form and to pass through solid walls. Her animal alter ego was a monstrous black cat, not a bat as in Dracula. She did, however, sleep in a coffin.

Some critics, among them William Veeder, suggest that Carmilla, notably in its outlandish use of narrative frames, was an important influence on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.

[edit] Bram Stoker's Dracula

Although Carmilla is a lesser known and far shorter Gothic vampire story than the generally-considered master work of that genre, Dracula, the latter is heavily influenced by Le Fanu's short story. Harry Ludlam has said that Dracula is "the product of [Stoker's] own vivid imagination and imaginative research", but it is clear that Stoker was inspired by Carmilla.

In the earliest manuscript of Dracula, dated 8 March, 1890, the castle is set in Styria, although the setting was changed to Transylvania six days later. Stoker's posthumously published short story Dracula's Guest, known as the deleted first chapter to Dracula, shows a more obvious and intact debt to Carmilla, and the setting of Styria remains unchanged.

Both stories are told in the first person. Dracula expands on the idea of a first person account by creating a series of journal entries and logs of different persons and creating a plausible background story for them having been compiled. Stoker also indulges the air of mystery far better than is executed in Carmilla by allowing the characters to solve the enigma of the vampire along with the reader.

The descriptons of Carmilla and the character of Lucy in Dracula are similar, and have typified the now-stereotypical appearance of the waif-like victims and seducers in vampire stories as being tall, slender, languid, and with large eyes, full lips and soft voices. Both women also sleepwalk.

Stoker's Dr. Abraham Van Helsing is a direct parallel to Le Fanu's Dr. Hesselius: both characters used to investigate and catalyse actions in opposition to the vampire, and symbolically represent knowledge of the unknown and stability of mind in the onslaught of chaos and death. (Baron Vordenburg also influenced Dracula's Lord Godalming.)

[edit] Carmilla in culture

Carmilla as depicted in Vampire Hunter 'D': Bloodlust

[edit] Films

Danish Director Carl Dreyer loosely adapted Carmilla for his 1932 film Vampyr.
French director Roger Vadim's Et mourir de plaisir (literally "And to die of pleasure", but actually shown in England as "Blood and Roses") (1960) is based on Carmilla and is considered one of the greatest of the vampire genre. The Vadim film thoroughly explores the lesbian implications behind Carmilla's selection of victims, and boasts cinematography by Claude Renoir.
The British Hammer Film Productions also produced a fairly faithful adaptation of Carmilla entitled The Vampire Lovers (1970) with Ingrid Pitt in the title role and Madeline Smith as her victim/lover Laura. An explicit erotic lesbian theme was emphasised in this film. However in the sequel Lust for a Vampire (1971) Carmilla (played in this film by Yutte Stensgard), develops heterosexual interests: despite landing the ideal job for a lesbian vampire as a schoolteacher in a girls' school. This change in her sexual orientation seems to have been at the behest of the chief film censor, John Trevelyan, who monitored the film in production. In the third film of this Karnstein Trilogy: Twins of Evil, (1971) Carmilla (Katja Wyeth) plays a very minor role in the story, whose main interest is the two titular characters.
The novella was freely adapted in Spain in 1972 as The Blood Splattered Bride.
The theme of lesbian vampires was further explored in the erotic and bloody Vampyres (1974) by José Ramón Larraz.
In 1990, Gabrielle Beaumont created the movie for the horror anthology television series titled Carmilla, which is one of the more faithful adaptations of the story, though the setting was transported to pre-Civil War Deep South of the United States.
In 1998 Carmilla was updated to present-day Long Island, New York in a film of the same name. The film is the brainchild of Jay Lind, the writer, director, and producer for the film. Starring Maria Pechukas, Heather Warr and Andy Gorkey, and co-produced by Jeff Schelenker, Carmilla is a horrific, gory, erotic counterpart to the Gothic novel. While the film is in no way Gothic or romantic, it shows a different side of the story presented in the book.
The animated film Vampire Hunter 'D': Bloodlust (2000) includes a character named Carmilla who is the lingering spirit of a long-dead yet very powerful vampire countess who continues to rule her castle.
The story was very loosely adapted in the 2004 straight-to-video splatter movie Vampires vs. Zombies.
Carmilla appears as the bride of Dracula in the direct-to-DVD animated movie The Batman Vs. Dracula (2005).

[edit] References in popular culture

In 1991 Aircel Comics published a 6-issue miniseries of Carmilla. It was based on the story by Sheridan Le Fanu. The first issue was printed in February 1991.
The novel Carmilla: The Return, written in 1999 by Kyle Marffin, begins in 19th-century Austria but follows Carmilla's life into 1990s Michigan.
Cradle of Filth, a popular black metal band, has produced an album called "Dusk... And Her Embrace" inspired by Carmilla, with an instrumental track entitled "Carmilla's Masque".
In the 9th episode of the anime "Hellsing", a vampiress tricks Integra into believing she is her older sister, using the name Laura. After her ruse is discovered, in the English dub Integra calls her 'Carmilla', although in the original Japanese version she calls her a baobhan sith; the use of Carmilla seemingly a stand-in because of transliteration problems (see Bubbancy under Hellsing (TV Series): Secondary Characters).
In the video game Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand, Carmilla is one of the Immortals, who appears either as a young girl in a red dress, or a huge half-human, half-snake creature.
In at least two of the Castlevania games there is a character named Camilla, described as being a longtime worshipper of Count Dracula. [1] The name of this worshipper has been spelled as both Carmilla and Camilla. The masked woman Vampira in Castlevania II is assumed to be the same Carmilla.
In episode 30 and beyond of Yu-Gi-Oh!GX, a character named Camulla is introduced as a soul-stealing vampiress trying to gain control of the three Sacred Beast cards.
The Doctor Who serial State of Decay features a vampire named Camilla.
A vampire named Baron Karnstein appears in Anno Dracula by Kim Newman. Carmilla herself is mentioned several times as a former (until her death at the hands of vampire hunters) friend of the book's vampire heroine Geneviève. Some short stories set in the Anno Dracula universe have also included Carmilla.
In the anime/manga Yami no Matsuei or Descendants of Darnkness, the cruise ship they sail on is called 'Carmilla'.