Can A Vampire Love? My Analysis of Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire

 

The vampire is the deviant being who questions society, breaks society’s norms, asks what is socially acceptable, controls his/her victims emotionally and psychologically, “marks” his/her victims and is questioned whether he/she is capable of loving and being loved by a human or other vampire. The vampire protagonist of Interview with the Vampire, Louis de Pointe du Lac, desires the knowledge of vampirism, what is aesthetic (what is good or beautiful), what is good, not evil and love and companionship in his immortal life.  Lestat de Lioncourt, Claudia and Armand, the three significant vampires in Louis’s life, lead him to question love and what it is for vampires. The three vampires open and/or close Louis’s dead heart. Throughout the novel, Louis consumes and is consumed emotionally.

Lestat enters Louis’s human life when Louis loses his brother, Paul. Louis felt responsible for Paul’s death. “I could not forgive myself. I felt responsible for his death. And everyone else seemed to think I was responsible also” (Rice, p. 9). Louis loved his brother despite the “vicious egotism” of claiming to see visions just as the Catholic saints did (p. 8). “I loved my brother, as I told you, and at times I believed him to be a living saint” (p. 8).

Paul’s death leads to the end of Louis’s human life. Louis, the head of the household and owner of the family plantations, no longer desires the home or plantations. He wants to escape all associations with his brother. He moves his mother and sister to a town home in New Orleans. “I never wanted to see the house or the oratory again. I leased them to an agency which would work them for me and things so I need never go there. Of course I did not escape my brother for a moment. I could think of nothing but his body rotting in the ground” (p. 11).

Louis no longer values his life; he begins drinking to forget Paul. Louis cannot escape his guilt and grief. “I drank all the time and was at home as little as possible” (p.11). He does not see the point of having a life without a family member. His new lifestyle begins killing him slowly. “I lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no courage to do it himself. I walked black streets and alleys alone; I passed out in cabarets. I backed out of two duels more from apathy than cowardice and truly wished to be murdered” (p.11).

Louis’s invitation for being murdered is answered by a vampire, Lesat. “And then I was attacked. It might have been anyone-and my invitation was open to tailors, thieves, maniacs, anyone. But it was a vampire. He caught me just a few steps from my door one night and left me for dead, or so I thought” (p. 11). Lestat returns to Louis to complete the process of being changed into a vampire.

While Louis is being drained of his blood, Lestat tells him, “It is your consciousness, your will, which must keep you alive” (p. 19). Lestat’s movement is “so graceful and so personal” that it made Louis “think of a lover” (p. 18). Lestat’s role in ending Louis’s human life tells the reader that Lestat is the dominant one in the relationship. Lestat yearns for power; this includes climbing up the social ladders. He selects Louis as his “child” for the plantations and to invest financially.

In the beginning of their relationship, Lestat does not choose Louis out of love for him, rather for love of class. He is passionate for materialistic things and financially depends on Louis to provide everything. In return, Lestat provides a homoerotic relationship to Louis. “Lestat whispered to me, his lips moving against my neck. I remember that the movement of his lips raised the hair all over my body, sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion” (p. 19). Both vampires sleep together prior to Louis having his own coffin.  Lestat tells Louis, “Now, I’m getting into the coffin, and you will get in on top of me if you know what’s good for you” (p. 25).

Louis does not love Lestat either for many years. Although Lestat fascinated Louis while he was still human, Louis develops an immense dislike and eventually hate for him. “And with that realization of it came another state in my divorce from human emotions. The first thing which became apparent to me, even while Lestat and I were loading the coffin into a hearse and stealing another coffin from a mortuary, was that I did not like Lestat at all. But before I had died, Lestat was absolutely the most overwhelming experience I’d ever had” (p. 25). Lestat lost his spell over Louis when the “gap closed between” them (p. 26).

Although Louis loved Paul during his human life, the vampire Louis no longer cares about him. While Louis was still human, he would visit the oratory to feel closer to Paul. Louis chooses to sleep separately from Lestat and takes his coffin into the oratory. Louis says, “Paul, for the first time in my life I feel nothing for you, nothing for your death; and for the first time I feel everything for you, feel the sorrow of your loss as if I never before knew feeling” (p. 35). As a vampire, Louis chooses to move forward and no longer live in the past. He tells the interviewer, “For the first time now I was fully and completely a vampire. That is how I became a vampire” (p. 35).

Claudia’s first purpose of becoming a vampire was out of Lestat’s desperation for Louis to remain with him. Lestat manipulates Louis by using his “mortal heart” against him. Lestat exclaims, “I want a child tonight. I am like a mother... I want a child” (p. 89)! Louis tells the interviewer, “I should have known what he meant. I did not. He had me mesmerized, enchanted. He was playing me as he had when I was mortal, he was leading me. He was saying, ‘Your pain will not end’” (p. 89).

Louis wanted Claudia out of hunger for her blood and not wanting to kill her. “I remembered two conflicting things and was torn in agony: I remembered the powerful beating of her heart against mine and I hungered for it, hungered for it so badly I turned my back on her in the bed and would have rushed out of the room had not Lestat held me fast; and I remembered her mother’s face and that moment of horror when I’d dropped and child and he’d come into the room” (p. 90). Lestat uses this desire to his advantage. “You want her, Louis. Don’t you see, once you’ve taken her, then you can take whomever you wish. You wanted her last night but you weakened, and that’s why she’s not dead” (p. 91). Louis says, “I wanted her! And so I took her in my arms and held her, her burning cheek on mine, her hair falling down over my wrists and brushing my eyelids, the sweet perfume of a child strong and pulsing in spite of sickness and death” (p. 91).

Although Claudia is a child, Louis feels a sensual attraction towards her as a vampire child. “She had a voice equal to her physical beauty, clear like a little silver bell. It was sensual. She was sensual” (p.93). She becomes Lestat’s pupil, Louis and Lestat’s daughter and Louis’s lover. “She’s our daughter. You’re going to live with us now” (p.93).

Claudia and Louis develop a strong bond. “Father and Daughter. Lover and Lover” (p. 101). Louis notices that her eyes “were a woman’s eyes” (p. 94). “Her body died, yet her senses awakened as much as mine had. And I treasured in her the signs of this. But I was not aware for quite a few days how much I had wanted her, wanted to talk with her and be with her. But all this was meant for me, to draw me close and keep me there. Afraid of fleeing alone, I would not conceive risking it with Claudia. She was a child. She needed care” (p.97). She was Lestat and Louis’s “magnificent doll” (p.99).

Louis loved Claudia so much, he was willing to do anything for her- even become her ally in killing Lestat, when she asks, “Which of you made me what I am?” (one of her first acts of rebellion) and “giving” her Madeleine (p. 108). His remained in love with Claudia while he feared her, desired Armand and after her final death. “For I was so attuned to her, I loved her so completely; she was so much the companion of my every waking hour, the only companion that I had, other than death” (p. 105). Louis tells her, “I need you. I cannot bear to lose you. You’re the only companion I have in immortality” (p. 113). Claudia fulfills for Louis what Lestat cannot-someone to love, protect and fill his immortal heart.

One thing Louis desired throughout his immortal life was a father/mentor. Louis sees Armand and uses him as a father who will teach him about being a vampire and how to use his powers-what Lestat neglected to do. Armand consuming the mortal boy’s blood was “an icon of love” to Louis (p. 254).Armand is the second vampire Louis admits to loving. “For vampires, physical love culminates and is satisfied in one thing, the kill. I speak of another kind of love which drew me to him completely as the teacher which Lestat had never been. Knowledge would never be withheld by Armand. I knew it” (p. 254).

Although Louis loves Claudia, he feels lonely without a mentor. Armand tells him, “I only know the danger to you and the child is real because it’s real to you. And I know your loneliness even with her love is almost more terrible than you can bear” (p. 255). Louis wants a love other than father/daughter and lover. Having one companion for many years has led him to loneliness.

After Armand warns Louis to “beware” and “Killing other vampires is very exciting; that is why it is forbidden under penalty of death” for his and Claudia’s safety, he does not immediately return to the Hotel Saint-Gabriel to see Claudia (p. 256). “It was not that I did not love her; rather it was that I knew I loved her only too well, that the passion for her was as great as the passion for Armand. And I fled them both now, letting the desire for the kill rise in me like a welcome fever, threatening consciousness, threatening pain” (p. 256). The possibility of being Armand’s companion offers Louis freedom from Claudia’s clutches, how to survive the vampire life and not get bored. Boredom leads to vampires’ psychological and emotional torment.

Although Armand claims to love and desire Louis, their relationship is abusive. Armand admits to forcing Louis to turn Madeleine into a vampire. “I made you do it! I was near you the night you did it. I exerted my strongest power to persuade you to do it” (p. 287). This act is one of Armand’s beginning steps to have Louis for himself and dominate him; Armand consumes Louis’s emotions.

Armand withholds the information of his part in killing Claudia and Lestat still being alive. Armand’s desire of killing Claudia is due to being a possessive, jealous lover. He takes pleasure in his power over Louis. Part of this power is wanting reactions out of Louis. Armand expects Louis to “come back to life” after finding Lestat in New Orleans (p. 335). “I thought you would at least care about that. I thought you would feed the old passion, the old anger if you were to see him again. I thought something would quicken and come alive in you if you saw him… if you returned to this place” (p. 335). Armand is defeated over this attempt to control Louis’s emotions.

Throughout his immortal life, Louis finds and loses love, breaks the boundaries of who to love and loses his humanity. His life without love leads him to leaving all of his familiarities. “I wanted to be where nothing was familiar to me. And nothing mattered” (p. 338). An immortal life is empty and meaningless without love.

Citations

Rice, A. (1976). Interview With the Vampire. New York City, NY: Ballantine Books.