From A Female’s Point Of View: Misogyny In Vampire Literature

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room.(Le Fanu 83)

This quote is the first description of the attraction a person is
vulnerable to when they first look at Carmilla. When Laura encounters
Carmilla for the first time, Carmilla is sitting up in her bed by candle
light. Once again a reference is made to Carmilla’s beauty when she is
described as having a “slender pretty figure enveloped in the soft silk
dressing-gown, embroidered with flowers”(Le Fanu 85) As readers we get the
idea that Le Fanu wants us to feel an attraction between the two girls even
before a word is said between them. In fact, up to this point all we know
of Carmilla is that she is an extremely beautiful girl, who is irresistible
to look at. This irresistibility is added to through the use of setting.
Knowing what we now know of Carmilla and by placing her in a bed by candle
light wearing nothing but a sheik night gown, it is impossible not to look
at her as a mere symbol of lust.
Carmilla’s first request to Laura furthers the notion of ...

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that she wants from any weak person through using her physical
appearance.
The next piece that I will be looking at is The Girl with the
Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber. Like Carmilla, the vampire in this story is a
non-traditional one who gains power from her victims through her looks.
However, the vampire in this story does not use fangs to conquer her prey,
instead she uses her eyes. She is model who stumbles in on a starving
photographer desperately in need of a big break to put him out of the poor
house. Like Carmilla, this vampire is able to single out this photographer’
s weakness and use it to her advantage. “The Girl” is the name that the
photographer uses when speaking of his ...

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