If you were less pretty I think I should be very much afraid of you

This article will investigate a female personification of the traditionally masculine figure of Death in Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Irish Gothic novella, Carmilla (1872). Carmilla is a beautiful, female vampire who preys specifically on women, thereby fulfilling the conventionally masculine roles of hunter and pursuer of the object of desire. Her seduction of Laura raises the notion of homosexuality and illustrates growing social concerns about the sexual liberation of the ‘New Woman’ in Victorian society.

In order to explore the relationship between the Maiden and the female figure of Death, various literary theories will be applied to the text. Specifically, feminist and Lacanian theories of social masquerade will examine how these characters protect themselves from the constraints of patriarchy and how virtue in women is promoted by considering any semblance of female sexuality to be threat to men’s power. Men’s entrapment and control of women, as well as women’s submission to them, will also be examined to assess the gender dynamics of this text. Finally, the unconventionality of these characters will illustrate how Gothic literature has always challenged (and subsequently, subverted) the collective paradigm of female representation and sexuality in order to give its readers an alternative version of femininity.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License.

ISSN: 2202-2546

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