Wealth and Writing
Wealth is a major issue in this story. Since the author herself had accomplished the extremely unusual task (doubly so for a woman) of establishing financial independence by acquiring wealth as a result of working hard as a writer, it should come as little surprise that being rich is not looked upon as particularly sinful, though some characters work hard to make it so:
“You are too rich. That of itself is not legitimate in Literature, which great art generally elects to wear poverty in its button-hole as a flower of grace. The fight cannot be equal in such circumstances…If I, for example, became an author, I should probably with my wealth and influence, burn up everyone else’s laurels. Suppose that a desperately poor man comes out with a book at the same time as you do, he will have scarcely the ghost of a chance against you.”
Gothic Horror
To a point, the novel falls into he category of gothic horror. That is to say that it definitely contains elements of the horror novel and it does without question fully embody the sanctions of the gothic ideal. The twain do not meet all that often in the text, but those occasions are really the point at which the quality of the writing raises to the occasion with the author revealing mastery of imagery with a flourish:
“I crept slowly and stealthily down the stair, till as my foot touched the last step I saw—what nearly struck me to the ground with a shock of agony—and I had to draw back and bite my lips hard to repress the cry that nearly escaped them. There,—there before me in the full moonlight, with the colors of the red and blue robes of the painted saints on the window glowing blood-like and azure about her, knelt my wife,— arrayed in a diaphanous garment of filmy white which betrayed rather than concealed the outline of her form,—her wealth of hair falling about her in wild disorder,—her hands clasped in supplication,—her pale face upturned.”
The Vampire Soul of Satan
Satan in the novel appears in the form of Prince Lucio Rimânez. The narrator’s introduction to the devil is appropriately endowed with traditional gothic horror imagery. The horror and the imagery become all the more macabre and sinister with the introduction of a strange, unknown scarab-like creature the Prince declares to possibly be a transmigrated soul of the darker variety. The attribution seems to apply just as equitably to himself:
“A cold thrill ran through me from head to foot at these words, and as I looked at the speaker standing opposite me in the wintry light, dark and tall, with the ‘wicked, brilliant, vampire soul’ clinging to his hand, there seemed to me to be a sudden hideousness declared in his excessive personal beauty. I was conscious of a vague terror, but I attributed it to the gruesome nature of the story, and, determining to combat my sensations, I examined the weird insect more closely."
Hungry Like the Wolf
The Prince is implicated early and strongly as something not quite of this earth. He looks like a man and talks like a man, but it seems clear enough that he isn’t quite simply a man. He himself seems to take a grotesque pleasure in leading this charge against his place among mortals as he declares himself an exception among man while asserting:
“I am one with the beasts in honesty! The lion does not assume the manners of the dove,—he loudly announces his own ferocity. The very cobra, stealthy though its movements be, evinces its meaning by a warning hiss or rattle. The hungry wolf’s bay is heard far down the wind, intimidating the hurrying traveler among the wastes of snow. But man gives no clue to his intent—more malignant than the lion, more treacherous than the snake, more greedy than the wolf, he takes his fellow-man’s hand in pretended friendship, and an hour later defames his character behind his back.”
