Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Carmilla contd

This story really drew me in, it was definitely a page turner.  I felt bad for the General about his daughter and I found it exciting how the General had described what had happened to his daughter and how much it paralleled Laura's experience.  It makes me wonder though why didn't Laura die?  Is it because Carmilla didn't take enough blood which in turn turned Laura into a vampire as well.  The General's story was very compelling when he spoke about Mircalla, Countess Karnstein and what supposedly happened to her, when in actually nothing happened to her at all.  she still walks around the town and just changes the letters around in her name to "fool" people.  I wonder who was Madame la Comtesse, was she a vampire as well?  And if she was why was she always disappearing?  Why wasn't she feasting on the town's people?  I think the interaction between Carmilla and Madame la Comtesse is very odd.  The chapter where Carmilla comes and see's the General and how he lunges at her and we get to experience of how strong she really is.  I really disliked the conclusion chapter, I felt like at first the chapter wasn't making since and then you come to hear about how the Baron was in love with Mircalla and that he would do anything for her.  I think he is possibly hiding her and that he would only give out some information to protect even in the after life.  The ending was becoming so involved and then it just dropped off to me.  I really think that Laura is a vampire because of the fact that Carmilla comes to her again.

4 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed how you explained the outcome of Laura as her becoming a Vampire. I feel that it was just open ended enough. I also enjoyed your connection to the general scene; it brings out a large element of the supernatural in Carmilla.

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  2. Some of these questions you are asking I was also asking myself. Like in the end how come Laura didn't either die or become a vampire? I always thought that if you were bit by a vampire you would turn into a vampire because they passed their DNA to you. You bring up a lot of interesting questions, the Baron being in love with Mircalla?! The point about how strong Carmilla really is is a great thing to bring up. The fact that she can basically do whatever she wants yet only goes after things she really wants says something about her. She has control and plans out the things she does. Overall I really like how many things your brought up in your blog, lots of intriguing questions.

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  3. I was wondering that too. Why didn't anything happen to Laura? After she was bit, she didn't get as sick as the General's daughter had been. It would make sense if she had at least turned into a vampire but nothing happened. It was kind of unsatisfying for me personally.

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  4. As our classmates have noted in your other comments, many of these questions are frustratingly left open ended. Or are they? With the exception of Madame la Comtesse, who I was equally as puzzled by. The reason we do not know her fate is probably a function of the style in which Le Fanu choose to write this story. Writing from Laura’s point of view lends the story with a personal quality, however when it comes to larger events outside the schloss, such as what happened to the Madame, we are left wondering. She simply has no way of knowing and the only one who possibly does, her father, is also most likely left in the dark. It is all very frustrating for the reader.
    You wrote, “I felt bad for the General about his daughter and I found it exciting how the General had described what had happened to his daughter and how much it paralleled Laura's experience.” What a compelling question, my own opinion is that she was being slowly drained of blood much like Laura. It does seem that Laura’s and the Generals niece had eerily similar tales. The General details his niece’s demise:
    "My dear child began to lose her looks and health, and that in a manner so mysterious, and even horrible, that I became thoroughly frightened.
    "She was at first visited by appalling dreams; then, as she fancied, by a specter, sometimes resembling Millarca, sometimes in the shape of a beast, indistinctly seen, walking round the foot of her bed, from side to side.
    Lastly came sensations. One, not unpleasant, but very peculiar, she said, resembled the flow of an icy stream against her breast. At a later time, she felt something like a pair of large needles pierce her, a little below the throat, with a very sharp pain. A few nights after, followed a gradual and convulsive sense of strangulation; then came unconsciousness."
    From these passages it doesn’t seem that she died suddenly but was killed slowly, in much the same way as Laura was suffering. It would also appear that Laura was sparred Carmilla’s last kiss. This in turn spared her life.

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