But she simply comes across as needy and creepy. The trope that Carmilla has created doesn’t do the original story any favours.Ĭarmilla, the eponymous ‘villainess’ of Le Fanu’s novella, should be the embodiment of female sexuality. Carmilla’s vampirism isn’t shocking or even amusing like it would have been if Collins had written it. Modern readers are accustomed to the idea of ‘vampires’ and in Carmilla nothing comes as a surprise. I was expecting a Gothic and atmospheric tale but I found Carmilla to be a lacklustre story one that has not aged well. One of the most discussed aspect of ‘Carmilla’ is not the vampirism itself as much as the fact that both the vampire and the victims are female. Le Fanu, who to his own discontent was proclaimed as being ‘the Irish Wilkie Collins’, is celebrated for having written one of the first vampire stories.
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