Carmilla

“My gouvernantes had just so much control over me as you might conjecture such sage persons would have in the case of a rather spoiled girl, whose only parent allowed her pretty nearly her own way in everything.” 

Here we learn that Laura, by her own admission, is “spoiled.” One may wonder if a woman who got her “own way in everything” might be prone to exaggeration—or even complete fabrication—since she has rarely been held accountable for her actions. The passage also reveals that Madame and Mademoiselle are impotent as authority figures to Laura.

“She caressed me with her hands, and lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her, smiling; I felt immediately delightfully soothed, and fell asleep again. I was wakened by a sensation as if two needles ran into my breast very deep at the same moment, and I cried loudly.” 

This is the moment in which Laura is first bitten by Carmilla, though it is unclear whether it happened in a dream or in real life. Since Laura is a child here, the timeline of her vampiric infection would not line up with the other cases of vampirism in the novella, which last only a couple of weeks at most. So, either Laura is a special case and has been singled out since childhood or she is having some sort of prophetic dream in this passage. Alternately, this childhood event could be a fabrication or a false memory of some sort. 

“The fiend who betrayed our infatuated hospitality has done it all. I thought I was receiving into my house innocence, gaiety, a charming companion for my lost Bertha. Heavens! What a fool have I been!” 

Unbeknownst to Laura, Carmilla has alreadykilled a family friend of hers. Laura and her father will soon also become “infatuated” with Carmilla. They receive this letter from the General the same day that Carmilla shows up, and they ironically fall victim to her just like the General had fallen victim.

“I knew what was coming. I covered my eyes, unable to see it out, and turned my head away […]” 

As Carmilla and her mother crash in their carriage, Laura refuses to look at the crash. This is an instance of Laura’s aversion to any and all violence. This passage also works as a metaphor for how Laura will later willfully avoid the truth of what Carmilla truly is and the danger and destruction she brings to Laura. Laura cannot face up to her true relationship with Carmilla, a relationship defined by sex and violence.

“There was a somber piece of tapestry opposite the foot of the bed, representing Cleopatra with the asps to her bosom.” 

The tapestry operates as a reference to Carmilla’s biting of Laura’s breast with her fangs. This has happened once before, supposedly, during Laura’s childhood, and it will happen once again. Thus, the tapestry both foreshadows and references actions that happen in Laura’s story.

“I saw the very face which had visited me in my childhood at night, which remained so fixed in my memory, and on which I had for so many years so often ruminated with horror.”

Laura here realizes that Carmilla is the one she had seen in her supposed childhood dream. She further reveals that this face has been an object of obsession to her over the course of many years. Though she is terrified of the memory of the event, she is unable to put it aside and forget it.

“If you were less pretty I think I should be very much afraid of you, but being as you are, and you and I both so young, I feel only that I have made your acquaintance twelve years ago, and have already a right to your intimacy.”

Laura begins to let go of her previous fear of Carmilla. She is able to do this partly because she is attracted to Carmilla in a physical sense. Laura’s naiveté does not seem to allow that anything physically beautiful can also be dangerous.

“I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love […]” 

In this passage Carmilla exhibits her conflation of life with death, and of love with destruction. To her, these things are utterly synonymous, and she yearns to initiate Laura into her mode of thought and being. To Laura, though, Carmilla makes no sense when she speaks this way. 

“What if a boyish lover had found his way into the house, and sought to prosecute his suit in masquerade, with the assistance of a clever old adventuress. But there were many things against this hypothesis, highly interesting as it was to my vanity.” 

Here we see Laura conceiving of Carmilla as a possible lover. However, she can only do so under the guise of an elaborate Shakespearean story in which Carmilla is actually a young man masquerading as a girl in order to gain access to Laura. Laura seems to be sexually attracted to Carmilla but cannot admit to this fact without using the elaborate constructs of fictions that she has read.

“Creator! Nature![…] this disease that invades the country is natural. Nature. All things proceed from Nature—don’t they? All things in the heaven, in the earth, and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains? I think so.” 

Carmilla’s worldview does not include a creator God. Laura and her father have a Christian worldview, but Carmilla maintains that everything is part of a Nature that is distinct from any concept of the Christian God.

“But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live together.” 

Carmilla delivers this line to Laura, hinting at her desire to kill Laura, who would then perhaps live on as a vampire after death. To Carmilla, loving someone means to kill someone. Her infatuation with a loved one can only end in the destruction of the loved one. 

“Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don’t you see—each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structure.” 

These are Carmilla’s thoughts on girls. Girls like Laura are “larvae” until they become butterflies. The transformation into womanhood is a movement towards perfection. Given the context in which this speech is found, Carmilla implies that sex and death (inextricably combined to Carmilla) are the catalysts for this transformation into a new, more perfect existence. 

“Here you are, living, smiling, ready to speak, in this picture. Isn’t it beautiful, Papa? And see, even the little mole on her throat […]” 

Here, Laura discovers a painting that bears a very near resemblance to Carmilla. In fact, it is a picture of Carmilla, who can never age nor change in any way. Carmilla is, in a way, trapped within the ‘frame’ of her existence, unable to move beyond that which she will always be.

“I soon saw that it was a sooty-black animal that resembled a monstrous cat […] and it continued to-ing and fro-ing with the lithe, sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage.” 

Carmilla has supernatural powers the allow her to transform into something like a large cat. However, these powers are not fully controlled by Carmilla, who is described as acting as though she were “in a cage” and constrained to act in this beastly way.

“The first change I experienced was rather agreeable. It was very near the turning point from which began the descent of Avernus.” 

Laura’s vampiric illness begins to progress, though she welcomes it and enjoys it in some ways. “Descent of Avernus” is a reference to Virgil: ‘facilis descensus Averno’, or ‘the descent to Hell is easy.” Laura’s struggle against vampirism is a struggle against pleasing easefulness. 

“Carmilla was looking charmingly. Nothing could be more beautiful than her tints. Her beauty was, I think, enhanced by that graceful languor that was peculiar to her. I think my father was silently contrasting her looks with mine, for he said: ‘I wish my poor Laura was looking more like herself.’” 

Here, the power of Carmilla’s physical attractiveness is again reiterated. This passage is also the first time that the reader learns Laura’s name. Essentially, Laura has not introduced herself to the reader until the part of the story in which she has fully fallen victim to Carmilla. By revealing her name now, she asserts her selfhood in opposition to Carmilla’s attempts to consume and destroy. Or, conversely, she asserts that she is only Laura–her true self—when she is in thrall to Carmilla. 

“No sylvan drive can be fancied prettier. The ground breaks into gentle hills and hollows, all clothed with beautiful wood, totally destitute of the comparative formality which artificial planting and early culture and pruning impart.” 

Throughout the novel, the countryside is described as a place containing restorative power. It is a natural place that has not been touched by human hands. Despite the countryside’s power, it is only ever driven through or walked through briefly; the novel’s characters never go out in nature and enjoy it for its own sake.

“I never saw anyone more taken with another at first sight, unless, indeed, it was the stranger herself, who seemed quite to have lost her heart to her.” 

The General describes his niece, Bertha, becoming infatuated with Carmilla. This infatuation is reciprocal: Carmilla is in as little control of her emotions as her various prey are. 

“The two ladies assailed me together, and I must confess the refined and beautiful face of the young lady, about which there was something extremely engaging, as well as the elegance and fire of high birth, determined me; and, quite overpowered, I submitted.” 

The General is not a bastion of strength and power, as one might assume from his profession. Instead, he is weak and malleable under the sway of Carmilla and her mother. Here, we can also see how class affects how Carmilla is viewed: the General suspects nothing from Carmilla because she appears to be a member of his own class or higher.

“It was a bad family, and here its bloodstained annals were written […] It is hard that they should, after death, continue to plague the human race with their atrocious lusts. That is the chapel of the Karnsteins, down there.” 

Carmilla is a member of the ancient aristocratic Karnsteins. She is implied to have committed sins during her lifetime which caused her to be a vampire. Carmilla is not an innocent in the way Laura and Bertha are portrayed. She had “atrocious lusts” during her life as a mortal human; the lusts are not acquired by becoming a vampire.

“I saw a large black object, very ill-defined, crawl, as it seemed to me, over the foot of the bed, and swiftly spread itself up to the poor girl’s throat, where it swelled, in a moment, into a great, palpitating mass.” 

This act of vampirism is described in a very sensual way. The sensuality of the scene is enhanced by the fact that these are the observations of the General, who is a voyeur to the scene, watching from a hiding spot with his sword in hand.

“Under a narrow, arched doorway, surmounted by one of those demoniacal grotesques in which the cynical and ghastly fancy of old Gothic carving delights, I saw very gladly the beautiful face and figure of Carmilla enter the shadowy chapel.” 

Here, Carmilla is revealed for what she truly is. The “demoniacal grotesques” arching above her act as symbolical visual representations of Carmilla herself.  

“There was a faint but appreciable respiration, and a corresponding action of the heart. The limbs were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic; and the leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed.” 

Carmilla has been consistently described as extraordinarily beautiful, but here she is described in repulsive terms. Shortly after this passage, Carmilla is beheaded and her body burned. The shock of these passages serves to distance the reader from any sympathy with Carmilla, who is not given space to explain herself, nor repent of her actions.