The Evolution of the Vampire Biclea Karina-Teodora College

The appearance of the Gothic in architecture of the Middle Ages was the start point and muse of Gothic Literary. The lack of simplicity, symmetry, regularity and nonconformation to nature inspired the features of Gothic Literature: horror/ terror, dark environment, paranormal, evil creatures, supernatural entities (vampires, ghosts, werewolves), haunted castles and mansions, isolated setting, violence, death and the sublime. The aim of this paper is to follow and compare the evolution of the vampire from the Gothic classics Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872) and Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897) until their film adaptations.

Influenced by Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819), Carmilla is one of the earliest work of vampire fiction. First serialized in The Dark Blue magazine (1871-1872)[1] and then reprinted by Le Fanu in the In a Glass Darkly short story collection (1872), Carmilla is the story of a female her gender being important “in the construction of her monstrosity” (Creed 1993, p.3) vampire named Carmilla (anagram of Mircalla) that preys on females. Because of her preference for female victims, the novella is often seen as a lesbian vampire story that challenges the Victorian age ideologies of sexuality ‘as with all other...