To Yearn – A Look at Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

For as long as Laura can remember, she had been haunted by Carmilla long before they crossed paths as young women, finding herself haunted by her presence in her dreams – a young beautiful woman with dark bewitching eyes and thick black hair that tumbled down her shoulders so heavy that Laura would often find herself baffled by its weight, and a mole on her neck, one of her most identifying features.

When they eventually meet, a mutual and irresistible connection forms between Carmilla and Laura, becoming suffocating for the reader – an overpowering, obsessive relationship that straddles the line between romantic and toxic.

Laura doesn’t know whether she loves or hates Carmilla. Whether the attention feels like affection or a trap. All she knows is that she’s drawn to her.

Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla is a cornerstone of gothic literature and an early, influential work in the vampire genre. While it’s an early vampire story, it’s by no means the first – vampires are old monsters whose resurgence comes around like a rite of passage for every generation, arising from the dead as they tend to do before vanishing in the cloak of night for their slumber, awaiting their subsequent resurrection.

Many cultures have their own vampire legends, and ancient civilisations had stories of undead blood-drinking demons they shared around the fireplace; even in Ancient Greece, they had their own vampires even though the name ‘vampire’ is a more modern terminology; instead, she was referred to as Empusa, who feasted on blood by transforming into a beautiful young woman and seducing men who they slept with before draining them. In Ancient Mesopotamia, they believed in an immortal blood-drinking “beautiful maiden” who was widely spoken about as a sexually promiscuous woman somewhere between a ‘harlot’ and a ‘demon’ who, after having chosen a lover, would never let him go.

When examining the key features of the vampiress in its origin, as described above, and comparing them to the Gothic classic novella, notable overlaps are evident. Carmilla, a beautiful woman, has her heart set on Laura and never plans to let her go, feeding on her blood during her seduction.

In the Victorian vampire genre, to which Carmilla belongs, they added another element to the lore, which added to their fears, as every previous iteration does. The Victorian vampire were symbolic of the puritanical fear held by society in England at that time – sexuality – and considering most of the Victorian vampire victims tended to be beautiful women led astray; it isn’t hard to comprehend that the sexuality most feared was female sexuality.

Upon its release, Carmilla was met with shock and horror for the implication that Laura and Carmilla were romantically interested in one another – while homosexuality between two men was illegal during this period, many believed it impossible for women to want to be with another woman; they found it near impossible to believe women felt any attraction at all with William Acton, a doctor of Victorian society, claiming ‘that the majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feeling of any kind’ – therefore the idea of a relationship between Carmilla and Laura seemed impossibly out of reach.

Vampires (or monsters in general) have been used as metaphors for different things since their conception; they are well-used symbolic vehicles for a variety of themes and topics – the human fear of death, oppression, religious deviance, social outcasts – but perhaps the most famous and openly discussed is the fluidity of human sexuality and sensuality.

There are plenty of examples of it in media, such as Dracula’s longing to turn Jonathan Harker into one of his ‘brides’, the relationship between Louis and Lestat in The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, and Angel and Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, sharing a lover in Drusilla as just a few examples from various periods.

The sensual nature of Carmilla’s advances would have been heavily frowned upon in Victorian society for both the overt expression of sexuality and female desire. The vampiric woman exemplifies a display of unorthodox independence, of knowing her mind and what she wants – something that, in Victorian society (and even today), is perceived as alien and unsettling by audiences and readers.

In her essay, “There’s Nothing Scarier Than a Hungry Woman,” Laura Maw explores this topic, summarising, ‘There is something uncomfortable and enthralling about watching a woman devour what she likes with intent,’ as Carmilla feeds from Laura nightly, puncturing her left breast with her fangs and taking her fill.

Vampires have been used as metaphors for various topics throughout their portrayal in media, but there is something that always remains a constant about them: their greed and their gluttony.

Like starving kittens, they gorge themselves on their mother’s milk until their bellies bloat, filled with the liquid like pot pies.

Hunger incarnate, greed personified, walking gluttony – vampires feed and feed and feed endlessly; they want and want and want beyond reason.

Blood, body, being.

Carmilla wants Laura not just to feed from her but to have her as a companion, to be hers, regardless of whether Laura will hate her for it or not. Her greed, her gluttony, and her desire for Laura overpower any reason and common sense.

No, not want — need — she needs Laura.

It’s heavily implied throughout that Carmilla wished to turn Laura, giving her the gift—or curse, depending on one’s stance—of immortal life as a vampire. Her struggle to accept Laura’s mortality haunts her, knowing one day that Laura will be gone and the world a little bit darker for it.

Love her or hate her for it, Carmilla couldn’t care, just to have Laura as hers forever, if enough, to be together in their un-death.

It is a pledge, a marriage between two when the eyes of society prevent it.

The only way Carmilla and Laura, in Victorian society, could be together is in death, in their version of an afterlife – heaven or hell – and wait for a time they could walk together, hand in hand, longing meeting longing, where neither woman would have to repress themselves.

“You must come with me, loving me, to death.”

It wasn’t a threat. It was the only kind of vow a woman like Carmilla was allowed to make.

It’s no surprise that the relationship between Carmilla and Laura has been the subject of analysis since its publication, as even today, the vampire motif represents something we are all familiar with – unrelenting longing, a deep, unsettling yearning that lives within us all, the forbidden and uncontrolled desires within the subconscious human psyche.

It is something Laura has repressed within herself, making Carmilla’s actions seem all the more extreme to her when receiving this undivided attention.

It makes it all the more interesting – this hunger, this obsession, this need – that Carmilla’s almost reluctance to drain Laura as thoroughly as she does her other victims is. During her stay with Laura, there appears to be an epidemic where young, beautiful women are dying, drained of blood.

All the women near Laura’s homestead are affected, but Laura withstands it the longest. Carmilla’s feeding on Laura is spaced out just enough that Laura won’t succumb to death like the others. She needs her to live; what is there after Laura?

Nothing Carmilla could stand without her.

Carmilla never has to worry about living without Laura, as the men in Laura’s life stake her while she sleeps in her coffin, only able to release a shrill shriek of pain before she dies a second time.

Laura, however, has to live without Carmilla. After the events that his daughter had gone through, Laura’s father takes his daughter on a year-long tour through Italy to regain her health and recover from the trauma, but she never fully does.

The image of Carmilla still haunts her – no longer content to roam Laura’s dreams, Carmilla’s memory starts to break through into the waking hours; sometimes Laura sees her friend, the playful, languid, beautiful girl, who kept her company in her loneliness. Other times, it is ‘the writhing thing’ that she witnessed in the coffin, but more often than not, Laura, in a daze, believes she hears Carmilla’s gentle steps at the door, waiting for her, catching glimpses of her in the dark corners, waiting for Laura to come with her.