Vampirism in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Angela Carter's "The Lady of the House of Love"

Abstract

Vampires have shadowed human history for thousands of years with vampire legends and folklore that embody the dark side of humanity and fear for the unknown knowledge such as death and soul. Generally said to be evil and bloodthirsty, these mystical undead creatures have haunted civilizations throughout the world and captured people's imagination up to the modern age. These archetypal figures gained prolific fictional power from the late eighteenth century by flourishing in Gothic literature. Represented by Bram Stoker's Dracula, vampires have become a metaphor that is highly effective for disclosing the fear and anxieties over socio-cultural limits. With the development of history, the motif of the literary vampires has been enriched, and its characteristics have shifted. The transgressive nature of the vampires allows their identity to remain fluid and unfixed; their embodiments change according to different social values and norms. This thesis will begin by tracing the vampire myths and their demythologization in the transition of this classic Gothic figure, emphasizing the role of female vampires in nineteenth-century literature. The female vampires appear as attractive yet deviant women, and they work as mirrors and parodies of the ideal women in the patriarchal society. Their aggressive sexuality and deviant behaviors represent the vampire women's transgressive nature. From a feminist narratological perspective, together with close textual analysis, the purpose of this thesis is to explore the vampirism embodied in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Angela Carter's short story "The Lady of the House of Love" with literary comparisons to the female vampires in Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Rebecca is an exemplary character in Gothic fiction; many descriptions of this fatal woman suggest her vampirism. Similar to Carmilla and the female vampires in Dracula, Rebecca's perverse sexuality and lesbian desire evoke great fear in the patriarchal society. However, the damned yet beautiful Countess Nosferatu in "The Lady of the House of Love" displays the dark aspect of vampirism and femininity. By illustrating the empty existence of a quasi fatal woman who lives in an unfree system and plays the role imposed on her, Angela Carter reverses the traditional Sleeping Beauty figure and debunks the stereotypical view of femininity in the patriarchal society.