Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rise

Interview with the Vampire is a fast-paced gothic story and uses interesting language that pulls in the reader. Gothic novels often start off with a tragedy, which this novel stays true to, beginning with the death of Luis’ brother. His death greatly affected Luis and made him depressed and feel guilty. After Luis becomes a vampire, a lot of death occurs at his, Claudia’s and Lestat’s hands.

Much of the language is very sexual, though it has nothing to do with sex. At one point, Luis says “the kill is better than sex” and whenever Luis kills someone and drinks their blood, he describes it very sensually and romantically, blurring the line between sex and killing. Dinking blood also makes him trip out and causes his mind to dull and sometimes hallucinate, like a drug.

Claudia is a very interesting character; she is a woman trapped in a child’s body. She is young and frozen in time, and as the years progress and her mind grows older, she begins to loathe her childish form. The fascinating thing about this is, though, the fact that because her body is a child’s body, the way she thinks is not quite as a woman. She does not have sexual impulses; she has a certain innocence.  Some background information: before Anne Rise wrote this book, her young daughter died, so she put that emotion into Claudia’s character. Her daughter died and was never able to grow old; Claudia “died” and turned into a vampire at a young age and was also never to grow into an adult body, which she hates Luis and Lestat for. She is able to forgive Luis when he turns Madeleine. Madeleine is able to craft and acquire small versions of women’s objects like low-cut dresses, gloves, and girl-sized furniture to make her feel more comfortable. This is short lived though because- spoilers!

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley begins in a very unique way by opening with the narration from a third party, someone not involved with Victor Frankenstein’s story. In the form of Robert Walton’s documentation, we can more easily understand Frankenstein’s remarks and references, for example, to his current depression and misfortune, and how he got to the North Pole.

            Frankenstein’s early life was vital to the story in that it showed how he came to crave the accomplishment of testing his discoveries. As a young boy, he had been interested in reading and learning as much as he could. When he discovered the outdated books on alchemy and philosophy, he became fascinated with then and took them as truth.  When he discovered their true worth in college, he stops reading them and takes up natural philosophy and chemistry, but you can see that those other subjects had a deep impact on him, and when he discovered the path to the secret of life, he combined his old passions with his new studies to help him towards his unnatural goal.

            As he is working toward this goal, you can see a great shift in his character. Frankenstein goes from being eager zealous to stressed and unyielding to his personal needs, like sleep. The closer he gets, the more high-strung he becomes, driving him to take less care of himself. I think this lack of maintenance contributed to the horror he felt when his creature came to life. Seeing the monster he had created combined with fatigue caused him to become increasingly anxious and nervous, leading him to insanity and illness.

            The wretch’s account was the most interesting to me because he was comparable to an infant: everything is new and must be tested and explored. As he watches the family, he learns and becomes somewhat dependent on them for knowledge. He sees them as friends. But when they reject him, he is heartbroken and seeks happiness from his creator, Frankenstein. Frankenstein is still very afraid and hates him. When Frankenstein refuses to create a mate, the wretch retaliates and continues to haunt him, and eventually gets revenge by killing Frankenstein’s wife. Frankenstein knew the wretch would do something then, but was still unprepared in his paranoia. As he ventures across the ice, the tale is brought full circle to present day. When Frankenstein dies and the wretch comes, Walton must confront the legitimacy of the story and comes to understand the wretch’s feelings and lets him go.

            Reading this book was a new experience to me: I don’t usually read books at this level, so it was a little difficult. It took me longer to interpret all of Frankenstein’s thoughts but I did understand them, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book.