Thursday, December 9, 2010

Evolution of the Child

I would like to expand on something from Colleen's blog.  Throughout the semester we have encountered a few child vampire characters, all giving us points of reference to see how this type of character has changed through the evolution of the vampire novel.  Our first child character came from Carmilla.  She was almost the embodiment of the Victorian ideal of womanhood except for the fact that she was a vampire.  Next we have Claudia from Interview with a vampire.  Again she seems innocent, like Carmilla, but has a dark and ruthless nature.  Finally Eli from Let the Right One In.  These three characters, although very different in their mannerism and era, do share a common thread.  
First, all three girls are searching for some sort of companionship.  This is obvious with Carmilla and Claudia, but slightly more dynamic with Eli.  Not only does she have Oskar, but also Hakan.  I would argue that Eli simply keeps Hakan around as a source of companionship.  She does not hesitate to kill him in order to save herself, and, most importantly, run away with Oskar.  The desire for companionship is the strongest of all three in Eli.  Secondly, all three characters are products of their time.  Carmilla is the essence of a Victorian woman (minus the vampirism of course), Claudia is the orphan child that "finds a home" with her fellow vampires, and Eli can be characterized as the needy type, searching for someone to literally "sink her fangs into" and latch onto.  All three of them are extremely fascinating when compared to each other.

3 comments:

  1. Hello and good afternoon,

    I agree with you blog about the comparison's with each other in these three books. To be honest, I never actually thought about that and compared these three people. I may have compared Dracula to Lestat and the differences and similarities between the two, but never Claudia, Carmilla and Eli.

    When it comes to this, you have a very good and strong point because they do seem the type to be needy and all seem to need a companionship or a type of relationship to fill their needs. However, they don't seem to be particular similar, they have their differences. I think that to made this blog better you could've went into further details about their differences than their similarities even though that was the main topic.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think all three child vampires are very representative of the era in which they are set. For Carmilla it's quite obvious that she's very victorian because it's easy for us to pick apart her characteristics, since it's a far away time period.

    For Claudia and Eli are from more recent time periods, but both are distinctive. Eli is living around the time of the end of the cold war. She's very egocentric. She doesn't want to have to bend to anyone else's will and wants things her way.

    Claudia doesn't really have a set time period as you see her throughout her life and that changes. However, if we go by the time in which the author wrote the book, the 70's, then you can see a slight theme in that it's a ragtag band of people traveling together. Claudia is just trying to find a home and a place where she feels like she belongs as the world around her changes, which happened to many people during the 70's.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good points but I think that these three girls would be representative of their time because of them their time has stoppped. They are children forever, just imagine all the things they have not gotten to experience yet or ever for that matter. I also recognize the constant need and desire for companionship because even though they have this incredible strength they had to survive virtually on their own. All children really want is a friend, someone to talk to about their problems and to play with and such; I think this need for companionship also makes them feel "alive". I agree with the relationship between Hakan and Eli, that he is merely their for Eli to make sure she didn't feel alone because I am sure she is more than capable at finding her own meal. Great post!

    ReplyDelete