Carmilla: Lesbian Love Story?
I've been planning to write about Carmilla and the Laura/Carmilla relationship, or, more accurately, the way most people view the Laura/Carmilla relationship, for a while now. It was going to be a long post, filled with quotes supporting my conclusions. However, I just don't think this is a complex enough subject to deserve all that work. So, instead, I opted for something more succinct.
Laura: At first I liked Carmilla, but I've grown terrified of this this stranger who doesn't respect my boundaries and seems to have some kind of control over me whenever I'm in her presence. I'm terrified of her disturbing talk of love and death. I also feel too weak and think I may be dying, but am too scared to ask for help. My experience with Carmilla was so traumatizing that I'm still shaken when I remember it decades later.
Laura's Father: I worry about my daughter who's dying of a mysterious illness no doctor can heal.
The Father of Carmilla's Previous Victim: This seemingly innocent young woman befriended my daughter and killed her. Now, I want to avenge her, which will of course, stop her from killing more people.
Modern Readers: There's clearly a lesbian true love story here that was cruelly thwarted by the patriarchy because Sheridan Le Fanu was weird about female sexuality. I will now correct it by writing numerous reimaginings in which Laura gets to free herself from societal constraints and consummate her obvious love for the sexy vampire who wants to save her from a limiting and unsatisfactory existence.
Both Carmilla and Dracula are predators, but there something more disturbing about the former's MO. She spends too much time with her victims and know them, before the final bite. That seems more cruel than just attacking them. Also, since traditional literary vampires are known to have the power to charm their prey and Carmilla managed to do just that to her previous targets, why do people think Laura's confused feelings when she's with Carmilla are more valid than her fear and rejection when she's away from her and her vampiric influence? After all, Le Fanu was writing a horror story in which a young woman nearly gets killed by a supernatural creature who infiltrates her home. Yeah, yeah, death of the author and all that, but Laura's inner monologue isn't sexy or romantic, and the way some readers ignore it is a little disturbing. Le Fanu isn't pushing his interpretation on real events - he created them, and while he gave Carmilla a sympathetic backstory, there's nothing to indicate that she wasn't a danger to Laura and women in the nearby village, quite the opposite in fact. Root for the villain all you want, but she was the villain.
Carmilla, much like Dracula, has become a sexual fantasy divorced from the original literary creation, and her victim's plight erased and replaced with a much less gloomy forbidden romance. At least poor Laura had her author's support, unlike Elena Gilbert. Maybe they should start a support group for Fictional Shipping Victims along with Sansa Stark.
By Danforth