Assignment Week Two: Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice (5 points) (+1 for movie)

 

            The book I read this month was Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice. Anne Rice’s book has the representation of vampires from a different almost opposite perspective. Most works involved with vampires back in that time were still considered villains; evil, cold beings with no human souls. However, Rice’s shows the romantic and opposite side from her character Louis.           

Louis' soul is almost still human, from his rage to his sadness. Through Louis, she shows a vampire having regret, love, forgiveness, passion, rage. All the things vampires seem to lack in older writings. These values represent the human that is still left in Louis. Louis throughout the story never loses his humanity even though he has faced so many hardships, he still longs for the pain. Emotions are all he has left of his mortal life, whether they are good or bad he did not care.

In the book, Louis is talking to a young reporter. However, throughout the interview, the young boy seemed to lack morality and just wishes to be like Louis. This was the point of Anne Rice, she wanted to show the toxic romancing of vampires through the young reporter and Louis. How man is tempted so easily to give up their humanity for power. I believe the novel does seem to express simple morality, but is more complex once you think about issues in more depth.

The values don’t just show through the reporter and Louis, however, Louis and Lestat as well. Lestat is a character filled with just wanting revenge. Revenge for many things, not having a choice on being a vampire is one of them. Louis felt revenge and anger towards lestat for a little while, until he morphed that into regret and sorrow about his decision to become what he is. The contrasts of these two characters shows through the book through the different negative feelings and extremes. This reads thus, Anne Rice wants to the importance of morality and humanity in its self.

Thus giving me and many other readers the experience of a fresh graze of a vampire, but also having the same gloomy, cold, secluded, and beautiful experience vampires already give viewers. I have watched the film when I was younger and now that I have read the story, my mind still hasn't changed. Growing up I always loved the Victorian era, all the architecture, decor, and beautiful fabrics. However, I also always connected vampires with that era, never the modern world. Maybe its because I am putting too of the things that intrigue me into one, or maybe its cause I can't see beauty in the modern world as I do that past. However, I do know that this work is and always will be in my heart as a true depiction of vampires. 

I also watched the Swedish film of Let the Right One In. This film I found interesting because unlike many of the other films I have seen of vampires, for its filmed like a documentary or found footage. The film doesn’t have the production feel that most films about the supernatural have. The vampire child however, isn’t the one killing for the most part. This strides from the normality of vampires. Her father, a serial killer, drains his victims blood for her to survive. 

This grabbed my attention like it did for how it was filmed. This is because it totally shatters the fact of how romanticized they have made vampires, like in twilight. They used a more realistic and modern day approach to how they represented them. This affected the film, in a very interesting way. For it made it more believable for the time and less supernatural; almost like the Countess Elizabeth Báthory for in her time. The values it shows is loving as well as fearing someone and the confusing take it can have on the conscious mind.