UNIVERSITE DU MAINE

U.F.R DE LETTRES, LANGUES ET SCIENCES HUMAINES

DEPARTEMENT D'ETUDES ANGLOPHONES

ANNEE 1998-1999

THE QUEST MOTIF

IN VAMPIRIC LITERATURE

Mémoire présenté pour l'obtention de la maîtrise ès Lettres par Frédérick Chesneau

Directeur de Recherche: M. Bonafous-Murat

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS_____________________________________________________

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS___________________________________________________

INTRODUCTION__________________________________________________________

I. A quest for the unrepresentable and manifest representations______________________

A.Escaping representations_________________________________________________________1.Physical absence and visual elusiveness_____________________________________________________2. The eye/I confronted with mirrors_________________________________________________________3.Informational deficiency: slips, lapses and ellipses_____________________________________________

a.Verbal deficiency_____________________________________________________________________b.Mental deficiency____________________________________________________________________c.Textual deficiency____________________________________________________________________

B. Symbolism and imagery of the"vampiric dream"____________________________________1.An ambiguous whiteness_________________________________________________________________2.Blood, teeth and stakes: The vampire-Grail__________________________________________________3.Locks, keys and chests: the treasure motif___________________________________________________

C. Attempts at representation_______________________________________________________1.Painting the unrepresentable______________________________________________________________2.Disguising the unrepresentable: clothes, masks and theatre______________________________________3.Writing the unrepresentable: manuscripts and signs____________________________________________

II. Questing and questioning the unrepresentable for interpretations__________________

A.Romance and the vampiric quest__________________________________________________1. Structural similarities___________________________________________________________________2. Thematical similarities of and latent motives for the quests_____________________________________

a.A quest for love______________________________________________________________________b.A quest for identity___________________________________________________________________c.A quest for spiritual truth_______________________________________________________________

3. Discrepancies between the quests__________________________________________________________

B. Physical movement and intellectual interrogation____________________________________1. Travelling as a mental form of exploration___________________________________________________2. Probing bodies________________________________________________________________________3. The "quested" questioned________________________________________________________________

III. Deceptive and disappointing aspects of the vampiric quest_______________________

A. On pathological rituals in the quest________________________________________________1. Conventional vampiric huntings of men_____________________________________________________2.Formal ceremonial killings of vampires_____________________________________________________3.Traditional protocols of writing the quest____________________________________________________

B.Failure of the quest______________________________________________________________1. Unsuccessful human achievements________________________________________________________2. Vampiric renouncements________________________________________________________________

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3.A textual maze of words for the reader______________________________________________________

C. A dead end hiding pluralism______________________________________________________1.Writing and pretending to be God: limits of creation and knowledge_______________________________2.Questioning ourselves in reading and reading our questions_____________________________________

CONCLUSION_____________________________________________________________

BIBLIOGRAPHY___________________________________________________________

APPENDIX________________________________________________________________

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I see at last the end of my quest. I would like to thank Mr. Carle Bonafous-

Murat, who advised me and guided me, and my girlfriend Virginie, who

supported me and helped me in my work.

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INTRODUCTION

Le vampire est une puissance sociale et sa compréhension nécessairement philosophique.1

Vampires and vampire stories have always excited human imagination since the

older times. Born in the antiquity, the vampire survived in mythology, then invaded eastern

legends and beliefs. From folk tales to modern works of fiction, he contaminated European

literature in the eighteenth century, before infecting finally a visual means of expression

nowadays, that is to say cinema. From speech to writing, from writing to movies, the

vampiric character has not disappeared. He has resisted throughout history by transmitting

himself thanks to humankind. The undead has never died, and he has also never ceased to

stimulate and fascinate the artistic imagination, and by the way, has attained a genuine

immortality. Thus "vampirization" and civilization have seemed to be progressing together.

Who knows what will the next stage of the vampiric imagination be... Perhaps the internet?

This incredible vampiric longevity which is also expressed thanks to an

inextinguishable literary creativity on the topic leads us to ponder over the reasons of it. Of

course, many researches have already been devoted to vampiric literature: however, it

seems interesting to explore further ahead an often forgotten aspect of vampiric literature.

In common culture, vampire stories are indeed often associated with Gothic novels,

romantic rebellion and sexual imagery. Those aspects cannot be denied, but to limit

vampiric literature to such components would be extremely superficial. If vampire stories

have undeniably taken the obvious appearance of adventures, they surely could not have

survived and known a never-ending success and renewal in popular imagination by being

restricted to such banalities. So, in order to understand the incredible popularity of

vampiric literature since the eighteenth century, one is compelled to suspect that deeper

concerns exist within it.

"What do readers look for when reading vampiric literature?" seems to be the

question to start with. Among the plethora of already existing vampiric productions, it

seems difficult to make a synthesis and identify the main unifying thread of vampire

1 Charles GRIVEL, Dracula, de la mort à la vie (Paris: Editions de l'Herne, 1997), p.9

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stories. However, a recurring motif appears in the vampiric framework, which is that of the

quest. Indeed, every character in vampire stories -be it the victim, the hunter, or even the

vampire itself- seems seized by the urge to track the other down. That quite obsessive

motif appears to be a central knot of the narrative; therefore its study seems essential

before drawing any conclusion on vampiric literature.

When looking at the large amount of vampiric writings that already exists,2 one can

wonder how such a study is possible. Moreover, lacking both time and space, the range of

books will be necessarily rather limited. An arbitrary choice is inevitable, so that the

research will deal with six of the best known masterpieces of the genre, and will

deliberately extend from the early nineteenth century to the present time. Those books are

John Polidori's The Vampyre (1819), Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (1820),

Théophile Gautier's La Morte Amoureuse (1836), Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla

(1873), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), and finally Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire

(1976).

Melmoth the Wanderer imposes itself in the list of traditional vampire stories

mentioned above when considering his indisputable vampiric characteristics: the wanderer

has everything of the typical, immortal, Gothic villain,3 without the usual teeth and the

crave for blood. But as vampiric characteristics change and depend on geographical,

cultural and time parameters, the vampire escapes any fixed definition, and nothing allows

us to reject Maturin's hero from that corpus. As Jean Marigny says:

Il reste que dans la délimitation de l'espèce vampire, il y a, une fois de plus, une partd'arbitraire difficilement évitable.4

Indeed, vampiric literature and vampiric characters are sheer products of human

imagination, and have therfore denied every definitive representation since their creation.

Paradoxically enough, their unrepresentable aspect remains the major common point to

describe them. Therefore their representation appears as the real issue in any literary work

concerning them.

2 see A short chronology of vampiric literature in Appendix.3 see Mario PRAZ's The Romantic Agony (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951)4 Jean MARIGNY, Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne (Paris: Didier Erudition, 1985), p.13

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I. A QUEST FOR THE UNREPRESENTABLE AND MANIFEST REPRESENTATIONS

A.ESCAPING REPRESENTATIONS

1.Physical absence and visual elusiveness

Melmoth is often invisible or unrecognizable even to the characters of the story. A Faust ofrumour, his is an existence made up largely of report, reputation, and expectant surmise. Heoften functions as an offstage whisper, and the fear of his imminent arrival tends to be morepowerful than his actual presence upon this melodramatic stage. The strongest parts of thenovel, indeed, are those in which Melmoth himself is absent [...].1

What is true for Melmoth seems to be true for other vampire stories as well. Indeed

one of the main characteristics of vampires is their elusiveness: they are conspicuous by

their absence! Lord Ruthven, for instance, is even explicitly described in such a way that

"he appeared to wish to avoid the eyes of all".2 The description of vampires in literature is

therefore based on a paradox: the best way to evoke their physical presence seems merely

to avoid this very presence. This observation can easily be illustrated thanks to several

examples:

But, when he had mounted to the summit he found no trace of either the corpse or theclothes, though the robbers swore they pointed out the identical rock on which they had laid thebody.3

Aubrey, the vampire's victim, is confronted to Lord Ruthven's vampiric power to

physically vanish. His eyes can but notice a void, an empty space left by a vampire. But

visual elusiveness often expresses itself thanks to a play of shade that darkens the

character's perceptions.

He found himself in utter darkness; the sound, however, guided him. He was apparentlyunperceived; for though he called, still the sounds continued, and no notice was taken of him.He found himself in contact with some one, whom he immediatley seized, when a voice cried

1 Charles MATURIN, Melmoth the Wanderer (Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 1989), intr. Chris BALDICK, pp.xvi-xvii2 John POLIDORI, "The Vampyre" in The Vampyre and other tales of the macabre (Oxford: Oxford World's Classics, 1997), p.133 Ibid., p.16

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'again baffled,' to which a loud laugh succeeded, and he felt himself grappled by one whosestrength seemed superhuman [...].4

In this passage, Aubrey experiences the vampiric absence because of the limitation

of his senses. Since the scene occurs in darkness, sight is short-circuited, and hearing thus

takes over it. But this sense only allows him to be aware of the vampire's presence, and not

to grasp him as a concrete being. It gives Aubrey but a suggestion of a being, rather than

the tangible proof of it. Sounds are not as reliable as visions, and Aubrey finds himself

"baffled". This visual eradication in favour of sounds is typical of what could be named

"vampiric imminence": a being who is here without being here.

'[...] I heard a step in the lower passage. I heard the gate-hinge groan. And then that stepagain, deliberate, loud, echoing under the arched ceiling of the carriage way, deliberate,familiar. That step advancing now up the spiral stairs. [...] I knew the step on the stairs. I knewthe step on the porch. It was Lestat. Lestat pulling on the door, now pounding on it, nowripping at it, as if to tear it loose from the very wall. [...] The pounding on the door grew louder.And then I heard the voice. 'Louis!' he called to me. 'Louis!' he roared against the door. Andthen came the smash of the back parlor window. And I could hear the latch turning fromwithin'.5

Once more the predominant sensorial perception of the vampire is hearing and not

sight. Indeed, in this passage, Louis's visual perception is completely set aside to the

advantage of sounds. One can notice the repetition of the verb "to hear" (used four times)

and the recurring obsession of the word "step" (used five times). That recurrence creates a

disappearance of the noise maker in favour of the noise itself: steps finally end up being

metonymic- they represent the walker itself! Such a substitution can also be perceived in

the following extract:

'I thought', said Melmoth, answering his silence, 'I thought I heard a noise- as of a personwalking in the passage.' 'Hush! and listen,' said Monçada, 'I would not wish to be overheard.'They paused and held their breath -the sound was renewed- it was evidently that of stepsapproaching the door, and then retiring from it. 'We are watched,' said Melmoth, half-risingfrom his chair, but at that moment the door opened, and a figure appeared at it, which Monçadarecognized for the subject of his narrative, and his mysterious visitor in the prison of theInquisition, and Melmoth for the original of the picture, and the being whose unaccountableappearance had filled him with consternation, as he sat beside his dying uncle's bed.' 6

4 The Vampyre, p.115 Anne RICE, Interview with the Vampire (London: Warner Books, 1994), p.1726 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.535

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One can be amazed at the extraordinary similarity that exists between these two last

passages. Here Melmoth's steps precede his physical entry, whereas in the former passage

Lestat's steps only precede his voice. Sounds work as an announcement of the vampire's

arrival, and thus suggest that people expect to see a being whose unaccountable appearance

remains the typical aspect. Indeed, the issue at stake is to hear without being heard, in

order to grasp at last -and at least- a visual idea of a being who is better known thanks to

indirect perceptions than to physical confrontation.

'Then a faint scent came with the wind. It was the scent of blood, at once arousing me,against my will, the warm sweet scent of human blood, blood that was spilled, flowing; andthen I sensed the smell of living flesh and I heard in time with the feet a dry, hoarse breathing.But with it came another sound, faint and intermingled with the first, as the feet tramped closerand closer to the walls, the sound of yet another creature's halting, strained breath. And I couldhear the heart of that creature, beating irregularly, a fearful throbbing; but beneath that wasanother heart, a steady, pulsing heart growing louder and louder, a heart as strong as my own!Then, in the jagged gap through which we'd come, I saw him. His great, huge shoulder mergedfirst and one long loose arm and hand, the fingers curved; then I saw his head. [...] But nothingof his face was visible except the barest glint of the moon on his eye as if it were a fragment ofglass.'7

Here the so much expected physical encounter finally happens. But one can notice

once more that the encounter was long in coming, as visual perceptions were preceded by

auditory and olfactory ones for Louis. Smells and sounds announce the confrontation with

the vampire from eastern Europe. However, his expectations are deceived, since once

more, his visual desire is frustrated!8 Sounds and smells are but fake promises of effective

visual representation.

Un soir, en me promenant dans les allées bordées de buis de mon petit jardin, il me semblavoir à travers la charmille une forme de femme qui suivait tous mes mouvements, et entre lesfeuilles étinceler les deux prunelles vert de mer; mais ce n'était qu'une illusion, et, ayant passéde l'autre côté de l'allée, je n'y trouvai rien qu'une trace de pied sur le sable, si petit qu'on eûtdit le pied d'un enfant.9

Clarimonde, the female vampire, left Romuald a sign of her presence, like a modern

Daniel Defoe's Friday. It represents more than a sensorial promise- it can be perceived as a

concrete visual proof for the young priest. However, that print is hardly reliable, because

7 Interview with the Vampire, p.2058 This idea is developed in Max Milner's On est prié de fermer les yeux (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), p.264: "Il y a en nous un désir de voir, sur les origines et les déviations duquel la psychanalyse nous éclaire [...]".9 Théophile GAUTIER, "La Morte Amoureuse" in Récits Fantastiques (Paris: Bookking international, 1993), p.90

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when one gives it further consideration, it only evokes that of a child. Moreover, a print is

but a very limited evidence! Indeed it is ambiguous in itself: a footprint evokes both

absence and presence, someone who was here but is not any longer. The same impression

is given in the following excerpt:

'Lay your hand along that hollow in the bed; some one did lie there, so sure as you did not;the place is still warm.'10

Carmilla left a sign of her presence on the bed of her victim. But the word used to

evoke it is significant: more than any other term "hollow" reminds one of the idea of

absence, or rather of non-presence. So confrontations to vacant spaces which demand

nothing but occupation seem paradoxically real expressions of vampiric presence.

The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the tomb, and coweredback. Further and further back he cowered, as we, lifting our crucifixes, advanced. Themoonlight suddenly failed, as a great black cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gaslightsprang up under Quincey's match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour.11

In this passage, one can notice the phonetical closeness -the paronomasia- between

the two words "vapour" and "vampire". Where Quincey and his fellows expect to see

Dracula's body, readers expect to read the corresponding word. But expectations and hopes

vanish as Dracula does, leaving but an emptiness rather typical of such creatures.

'She was at first visited by appalling dreams; then, as she fancied, by a spectre, sometimesresembling Millarca, sometimes in the shape of a beast, indistinctly seen, walking round thefoot of her bed, from side to side'.12

Carmilla's presence and physical appearance leave a faint image to her victim:

similar to a dream, her representation is unsettled and completely elusive. As often in

dreams, Laura inexplicably knows the name of the creature which she dreams of, even

though it is "indistinctly seen". One can wonder why such a restraint exists concerning the

vampire's description.

Parler du vampirisme transgresse un tabou, plus qu'une loi. Celui qui veut que l'on nepuisse -ni ne doive- jamais représenter la mort. 'Il n'est pas permis de voir les morts' ditEuripide, indiquant l'imprésentabilité esthétique de la mort dans l'étrangeté plastique de son

10 Joseph SHERIDAN LE FANU, "Carmilla" in In a Glass Darkly (Oxford: Oxford World's Classics 1993), p.24711 Bram STOKER, Dracula (London: Penguin 1993), p.36312 Carmilla, p.304

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objet. L'interdiction de figurer Dieu étant sans doute en cela voisine de celle de le voir mort, lemort-vivant renie le cénotaphe, le tombeau vide du dieu qui, comme chez les chrétiens, laisseplace pour l'interprétation sous la logique de la Loi.13

Indeed, the vampire expresses himself thanks to his absence, or signs of his

absence, but the mere fact of seeing and paying attention to the vampire gives him reality:

human glances make him real, and to some extent, give him life! If humans took no

interest in them, vampires would simply have no existence at all. As nature, and

particularly human nature, abhors emptiness, people cannot refrain from filling this

meaningless and unbearable vampiric paradox: a presence only felt through an absence. As

his image is hardly perceptible and even conceivable, indirect perceptions appear the best

means to tackle him.

2. The eye/I confronted with mirrors

Few things allow one to describe vampires, and their eyes are of those. If vampires

escape human eyes, theirs remain paradoxically enough the best remembered element

when evoking them:

'And in what form does he appear?' [...] 'In that of a middle-aged man, of a serious and staiddemeanour, and with nothing remarkable in his aspect except the light of two burning eyes,whose lustre is almost intolerable. He fixes them on me sometimes, and I feel as if there wasfascination in their glare.14

Indeed eyes in many civilizations are often gifted with many properties: considered

as the sole windows of the soul, looking into eyes often allows one to say a lot about a

speaker. So one could expect to own something of the vampiric image thanks to them.

However, it seems that belief cannot applied to vampires.

Les yeux du vampire ont, dit-on, le pouvoir de fasciner; s'ils ne peuvent être le miroir deson âme, c'est à nous qu'il tend le miroir des vanités, où, transis, nous contemplons notremisère et, derrière l'illusion de la vie, la réalité de la mort. Car ce fantôme sans reflet est biennotre reflet. Passé de l'autre côté du miroir, il est notre double inversé, et nous montre la vie oùil y a mort, amour où il y a prédation, éternité ou il y a damnation. Véritable négatif de notreexistence, il se révèle pourtant lorsqu'il est nourri de nos fantasmes, plus que de notre sang.

13 Alain CHARAYRE-MÉJAN in Les Vampires, Colloque de Cerisy-La-Salle (Paris: Albin Michel, 1993), p.3414 Melmoth the Wanderer, pp.426-427

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Dracula est l'illusion à laquelle il est si consolant de croire au prix d'un baiser.15

The vampire's eyes are not considered as revealing apertures but as reflecting

surfaces. In vampirism eyes cannot be dissociated of mirrors, as they own the same cold

brilliance. They invariably turn human people staring at them into mere modern Narcissus.

I allowed myself to forget how totally I had fallen in love with Lestat's iridiscent eyes, thatI'd sold my soul for a many-coloured and luminescent thing, thinking that a highly reflectivesurface conveyed the power to walk on water.16

Here Louis finally becomes aware of the reason why he appreciated Lestat's eyes so

much: he realizes that he was not learning anything about the vampire when staring at

them, but only wallowing in his own reflection.

Que me veut celui qui n'a pas de reflet dans le miroir, dans la psyché? [...] Le sujet estprojeté à cette place, derrière le miroir où s'est absentée l'image du vampire, et face à lui estérigée l'image de son propre corps mort. Le sujet pris sous le regard du monstre devient l'imagedu monstre.17

Finally confronted with his own image, Louis understands the undescribable aspect

of his condition as a vampire. Vampiric eyes reveal nothing of their owner, but only

reflects their contemplator's image. However, when staring at Armand's eyes, Louis could

expect some revelations, since he is a vampire too:

I shudder when I'm near you. I look into your eyes and my reflection isn't there...18

Once more Louis cannot grasp the vampiric representation. Confronted with his

own image, he learns nothing which could help him. Like two mirrors facing each other,

Armand and Louis both send back to themselves the endless reflection of reflection. The

image of the vampire as a reflective being is used more explicitly in the novel:

I realized that not only was his black hair long and full and combed precisely like my own,and not only was he dressed in identical coat and cape to my own, but he stood imitating mystance and facial expression to perfection. [...] And when I saw him blinked I realized I had justblinked, and as I drew my arms up and folded them across my chest he slowly did the same. Itwas maddening. Worse than maddening. Because, as I barely moved my lips, he barely moved

15 Jean MARIGNY, Dracula, Collection Figures Mythiques (Paris: Autrement, 1997), p.7816 Interview with the Vampire, p.29917 Jean-Claude AGUERRE in Dracula, Collection Figures Mythiques, p.15418 Interview with the Vampire, p.361

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his lips, and I found the words dead and I couldn't make other words to confront this, to stop it.[...] He was the vampire; I seemed the mirror.19

Louis and Claudia desperately look for someone of their own kind. When Louis

finally confronts with Santiago in Paris, the latter mocks at him by mimicking his gestures,

just as a mirror does. The expected revelation turns out to be a ridicule statement: Louis

painfully experiences the elusive aspect of vampiric representation on himself. Vampires

thus seem to escape any attempt of representation in substituting their own image for that

of their observer:

[...] elle me tendit un petit miroir de poche en cristal de Venise, bordé d'un filigraned'argent, et me dit: 'Comment te trouves-tu? veux tu me prendre à ton service comme valet dechambre?'20

Clarimonde takes this means to the limit by effectively confronting Romuald with

his own image thanks to a mirror. It becomes a mere prolongation of herself, and as it

literally associates itself with her arm, it finally disappears until the female vampire herself

almost becomes the mirror. Clarimonde reveals to Romuald a pleasant reflection of himself

which dissimulates her own. Dracula also uses the same trick:

Having answered the Count's salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had beenmistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see himover my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror! The whole room behind mewas displayed; but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself.21

Harker's attention is wholly attracted to his own self. Dracula and the mirror play

the same role, both reflecting nothing but Harker. The direction in which the young

Englishman looks does not matter, the result is the same: that is to say, a confrontation with

his own image, and not the expected one, that of the vampire.

[...] le vampirisme occupe l'en-deça du miroir. Non figurable, non représentable, sans refletcomme sans ombre, sans image cernable ni perceptible, dilaté à l'infini d'un univers sans tempset sans espace, hors refoulement, il exprime l'illimité voire l'immortalité du narcissismeprimaire absolu. Ce n'est qu'une fois dégagé du hors-là/hors-le-temps qui le caractérise quecertaines formes d'expressions artistiques lui prêtent une figurabilité.22

19 Interview with the Vampire, p.22920 La Morte Amoureuse, p.10321 Dracula, p.3822 Pérel WILGOWICZ, Le Vampirisme, de la Dame Blanche au Golem, Essai sur la pulsion de mort et surl'irreprésentable (Meyzieu: Césura Lyon Edition 1991), p.287

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Such would be the function of mirrors in vampire stories. Vampiric representation

hides behind a vanity mirror which works as a lure. Attracted to vampiric lustrous eyes,

human victims end up being trapped in the contemplation of their own image.

3.Informational defciency: slips, lapses and ellipses

a.Verbal defciency

'Oh, do not touch him- if your love for me is aught, do not go near him!' When, however,she inquired to whom he referred, his only answer was -'True! true!' and again he sank into astate, whence not even she could rouse him.23

These words uttered by Aubrey well present how unrepresentable the vampire Lord

Ruthven is, up to the level of speech. Indeed, if vampires escape visual perceptions as well

as attempts at representing their image, they also succeed in escaping the field of words by

becoming even unutterable.

'I need but little- my life ebbs apace- I cannot explain the whole- but if you would concealall you know of me, my honour were free from stain in the world's mouth- and if my deathwere unknown for some time in England- I- I- but life.' -'It shall not be known.' -'Swear!' criedthe dying man, raising himself with exultant violence, 'Swear by all your soul reveres, by allyour nature fears, swear that for a year and a day you will not impart your knowledge of mycrimes or death to any living being in any way, whatever may happen, or whatever you maysee.' -His eyes seemed bursting from their sockets: 'I swear!' said Aubrey; he sunk laughingupon his pillow and breathed no more.24

Lord Ruthven forces Aubrey to swear that he will not reveal the vampire's misdeeds

before dying. In this tragical scene, one becomes aware of how important the issue of

speech is: Lord Ruthven's plea aims at disappearing from the verbal world, before

physically disappearing on the mountain. In the same way, vampires' victims are often

confronted with an inexplicable restraint when trying to express their vision into words:

'In rejecting his last terrible temptation -in resigning him to his destiny, and preferringsubmission to my own, I feel my triumph complete, and my salvation assured. [...] He offeredto love me alone, and for ever [...] But when he whispered the terrible condition on which thefulfilment of his promise depended -when he told me that'-

'Her voice failed with her failing strength, and she could utter no more.'25

23 The Vampyre, p.2024 Ibid., p.1525 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.532

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Immalee's confession to the priest is disrupted by the unspeakable aspect of the

vampiric wanderer. Her verbal telling is cut short and stops on a blank, a slip of the tongue

replacing a descriptive term by the absence of descriptive terms. This kind of lapsus

linguae is typical of reports about the vampire. A direct meeting with him seems to trigger

a silence where words are waited for:

There was a silence of fully a minute, and then at length she spoke; I could not.26

Laura is here directly confronted with Carmilla for the first time. She only saw her

face in her dreams (or what she fancied to be her dreams) before, and the vampire's

physical presence makes her dumb! Indeed, spoken language seems to fail when

confronted with a vampiric character who once more escapes representations. And when

finally words get over this verbal taboo, vampires manage to regain their mastery over it:

Just stop asking me questions. Stop following me. Stop searching in every alleyway forother vampires. There are no other vampires!27

Lestat violently forbids speech to young Claudia. He seems to be anxious to keep

verbal secrecy about his origins. Talking allows to learn information, and pieces of

information are but oral means to hold a description: this is certainly why vampires dislike

speech, and questions in particular:

Answer no questions. Ask and you open one bud of truth for yourself after another. Butgive nothing, nothing, especially concerning your origin.28

Louis takes Claudia up the subject that talking allows learning. He advises her to

speak as little as possible, in order to keep her mystery: what the vampires of the theatre

will not hear from her mouth will protect her. The issue of language for vampires is

learning: without it, a veil of doubts floats over their existence, their origin, and thus, over

their representation.

La grande courtisane Clarimonde est morte dernièrement, à la suite d'une orgie qui a duréhuit jours et huit nuits.[...] Les convives étaient servis par des esclaves basanés parlant unlangage inconnu qui m'ont tout l'air de vrais démons [...]. Il a couru de tout temps sur cetteClarimonde de biens étranges histoires, et tous ses amants ont fini d'une manière misérable ou

26 Carmilla, p.25927 Interview with the Vampire, p.14628 Ibid., p.262

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violente. On a dit que c'était une goule, un vampire femelle, mais je crois que c'était Belzébuthen personne. [...] Après avoir dit ces mots, Sérapion regagna la porte à pas lents, et je ne lerevis plus; car il partit pour S*** presque aussitôt.29

Clarimonde remains a secret for Sérapion the priest, who can only speak of her

thanks to some gossips he heard of. The fact that the servants' language comes from a

foreign country adds to the absence of information. In front of this verbal deficiency to

depict the vampire character, he is compelled to make extraordinary conjectures on his

hellish origin. When words come out, they remain the vampire's prerogative:

'They will speak to you of wealth and dower; they will inquire about that region where youhave told me your rich and wide possessions are held; and should they ask me of them, howshall I answer?'

'At these words, Melmoth approached as close as possible to the casement, and uttered acertain word which Isidora did not at first appear to hear, or understand- trembling she repeatedher request. In a still lower tone the answer was returned. Incredulous, and hoping that theanswer had deceived her, she again repeated her petition. A withering monosyllabe, not to betold, thundered in her ears, -and she shrieked as she closed the casement. Alas! the casementonly shut out the form of the stranger- not his image'.30

So the only truth concerning vampiric representation can only be told by the

vampire itself! Here Melmoth tells Immalee about his origin, which will normally allow

her to have better means to depict him to the others. However, this verbal communication

is vain: what is told cannot be repeated. Melmoth still escapes representation in the field of

oral expression.

b.Mental defciency

'He then put to her several singular questions relative to Melmoth, which she was whollyunable to answer. They seemed chiefly the result of those impressions of supernatural powerand terror, which were every where associated with his image'.31

Immalee cannot talk about Melmoth: but here the mere verbal absence hides in

reality a memory lapse. The vampiric image overwhelmed its victim up to the point she

cannot return an oral description of it, because she does not remember of it! Paradoxically

enough, Immalee cannot remember Melmoth because she is the only one who saw him.

29 La Morte Amoureuse p.9830 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.35531 Ibid., p.526

16

I forget all my life preceding that event, and for some time after it is all obscure also, butthe scenes I have just described stand out vivid as the isolated pictures of the phantasmagoriasurrounded by darkness.32

Laura experiences that same phenomenon of mental disappearance. Carmilla

remains in her mind like a vague dark figure closer to a dream than to reality. The vampire

thus escapes any representation by muddling up his victim's memories.

'Where are you?' The answer came in a neutral way:-'I do not know. Sleep has no place it can call its own.'33

Mina Harker is with her husband Jonathan the only person who was physically

confronted with Dracula and who is still alive. She is linked by blood with the vampire,

and seems to be the best informant about him. However, even under the influence of Van

Helsing's hypnotic power, Mina's mind tricks her. She cannot tell anything about Dracula's

location. The vampire belongs to the inaccessible world of her dreams, and so his image

cannot be fully grasped.

Aubrey being put to bed was seized with a most violent fever, and was often delirious; inthese intervals he would call upon Lord Ruthven and upon Ianthe- by some unaccountablecombination he seemed to beg of his former companion to spare the beinghe loved. [...] Whenthe latter recovered from his delirium he was horrified and startled at the sight of him whoseimage he had now combined with that of a Vampyre [...].34

Lord Ruthven's image strongly left its mark on Aubrey's mind. His physical

depiction is hardly bearable for the young man, who is shocked when really confronted

again with his vampire "friend". Some kind of mental clash occurs in Aubrey: he knows

that Lord Ruthven is a vampire, but cannot match his appearance with his cerebral

conviction. There appears for the first time an element endowed with disconcerting

connections with psychoanalysis:

Ici nous nous trouvons pour la première fois en présence d'un principe qui, au point de vuede la motivation de la tendance favorisant l'oubli des noms, se révèlera plus tard comme jouantun rôle prépondérant dans la détermination de symptômes névrotiques: il s'agit notamment durefus de la mémoire d'évoquer des souvenirs dont l'évocation serait de nature à reproduire cessensations. Dans cette tendance à éviter le déplaisir que peuvent causer les souvenirs oud'autres actes psychiques, dans cette fuite psychique devant tout ce qui est pénible, nousdevons voir l'ultime raison efficace, non seulement de l'oubli de noms, mais aussi de beaucoupd'autres actes manqués, tels que négligences, erreurs, etc.35

32 Carmilla, p.24833 Dracula, p.40134 The Vampyre, p.1335 Sigmund FREUD, Introduction à la psychanalyse (Paris: Petite Bibliothèque Payot, 1961), p.63

17

So it could be a first explanation of the unrepresentable aspect of vampires: their

image cannot be remembered because it evokes unpleasant memories, and horrible events

associated with it. However, vampires sometimes escape human memory even though they

are not associated with painful remembrances! Hence comes the possibility of other

concerns deeply combined with the mental evocation of the vampire.

c.Textual defciency

He was released, refreshed, restored, and the following day uttered the followingremarkable confession * * * * * *

The old spanish woman further confessed to Stanton, that ** * * * * * * [...]36

This strange passage demonstrates how strong the unrepresentable aspect of the

vampire is, as it materializes itself even in written accounts. Melmoth here manifests

himself thanks to textual ellipses, some slips of the pen justified by a deteriorated

manuscript. His print is paradoxically enough an absence of typographical prints! No

written representation can be found as far as he is concerned.

I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders ofthree states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathians mountains;one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map orwork giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yetto compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps [...].37

This fundamental vampiric characteristic is also shared with the best known of

vampiric characters. Dracula's location is conspicuous by the absence of documentation

about it. He eludes any fixed map which would represent too rational evidence of his

physical presence. The vampire is never clearly there in black and white, he can never be

stuck within the limits of the frame of a sheet of paper:

[...] so here all night I stayed, and in the dimness of the night I saw It-Him! [...] I shall tiethat which He -It!- dare not touch; and then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, andmy honour as a captain.38

36 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.3937 Dracula, p.838 Ibid., p.114

18

This excerpt from the log of the Demeter, written by her captain, illustrates how

written words can hardly render the vampire's representation. The captain seems to hesitate

when putting down Dracula's gender in writing: the result is an ambiguous description

wavering between male and thing, which does not determine the vampire's image at all.

This textual incapacity to convey the vampire's image can even be extended to the level of

literature in general:

Carmilla, Dracula et la Morte Amoureuse, pour ne parler que de trois chefs d'oeuvre,présentent le vampire de l'extérieur comme un bloc d'altérité: il ne dit rien de ce qu'il est. Onsaisit uniquement sur les autres les effets de sa présence, on voit ses actes, mais on n'encomprend pas exactement la logique ni la cohérence[...]. 39

So vampiric literature, which should give the best representation of the vampire,

paradoxically emphasizes his unrepresentable aspect. Vampire stories give no fixed

description of him, but instead provide the readers with narratives focusing on his physical

absence, on misleading reflections of mirrors, and even on informational deficiency

affecting both fictional characters' testimonies and the text itself. Moreover, the

multiplicity and the diversity of vampiric traits existing in literature does not help to depict

a clear portrait of the vampire, but only a rough sketch of him. The fading image he leaves

behind him is closer to a dream than to reality. One can thus wonder why and how such an

undescribable and elusive creature fascinated and keeps on fascinating readers.

Ce sont des créations fantasmatiques de notre inconscient et, à ce titre, ils sont toujoursprésents au plus profond de nous-mêmes. [...] Ce n'est pas un hasard si le vampire [...] occupetoujours depuis plus d'un siècle et demi une place non négligeable dans la littératured'imagination et garde un certain pouvoir de fascination comme l'attestent certaines oeuvresrécentes. On peut même se demander si la dérision dans laquelle on prétend parfois l'enfermerde nos jours n'est pas une réaction de défense à l'égard de certains fantasmes qui nous troublentet qui nous dérangent. Le vampire, en effet, cristallise en lui de manière symbolique lespréoccupations ancestrales de l'homme à l'égard des conditions mêmes de son existence quesont la vie, la mort et l'amour, et à ce titre, il n'a rien perdu de son actualité.40

So the vampiric character in literature is not to be taken literally. Indeed the reader

has to go beyond the limits of his mere physical representation, since he only manifests

himself thanks to many symbols and indirect representations which demand to be

interpreted in order to have a semblance of an image.

39 Jean-Pierre PICOT in Les Vampires, Colloque de Cerisy-La-Salle, p.14740 Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, p.535

19

B. SYMBOLISM AND IMAGERY OF THE"VAMPIRIC DREAM"

1.An ambiguous whiteness

La pâleur de ses joues, le rose moins vif de ses lèvres, ses longs cils baissés et découpantleur frange brune sur cette blancheur, lui donnaient une expression de chasteté mélancolique etde souffrance pensive d'une puissance de séduction inexprimable [...].41

Clarimonde here shows one of the most typical characteristics of vampiric

characters, that is to say the pallor of their skin. Indeed in many cultures whiteness remains

a very common attribute associated with death and corpses: it symbolizes the absence of

blood, and so, the absence of life. However symbolism in general is by definition

ambiguous: symbols are open to multiple meanings which are sometimes opposed. Among

ambiguous symbols, white is perhaps the most ambiguous one! Even though in the last

passage it evokes frailty and purity, it can also represent both life and death. So in stating

that white is an ambiguous symbol of ambiguity, one is closer to reality than ever.

'It is here; I know it, now. On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, andghastly pale. It was in the bows, and looking out. I crept behind It, and gave It my knife; butthe knife went through It, empty as the air.'42

Here ambiguity characterizes the vampire's physical presence. Dracula is perceived

as "ghastly pale", and these terms defining him consequently give him a reality which

could make him concrete. However his definer comes up against the perception he had of

the vampire. White is ambiguous, it symbolizes an absence of established definition as far

as the vampire is concerned, and this conceptual gap materializes itself thanks to a physical

elusiveness: white becomes the expression of vampiric absence.

She sat still all the time- so still as one dead; and she grew whiter and ever whiter till thesnow was not more pale; and no word she said.43

White evokes vampiric absence from a physical point of view, of course, but also

some kind of verbal absence. White helps Mina, who is a newborn vampire, to be

41 La Morte Amoureuse, p.9542 Dracula, p.11243 Ibid., p.470

20

unrepresentable, as here the colour of her skin is strongly associated with her silence. She

does not talk and gives no information concerning herself to Van Helsing, and her

whiteness, which is no more eloquent, helps her to withold this piece of information from

him: the multiple symbolism of white leads either to misunderstanding or to

incomprehensibility. This is the reason why vampires play with their pallor when

confronted with human beings:

So I did something then which caused me great risk. I made myself known to her. I did thisby playing the light. As you can see, my face is very white and has a smooth, highly reflectivesurface, rather like that of polished marble.44

Louis understand very well the implications of his vampiric whiteness: indeed, it

hides more than it reveals. He uses it to meet Babette at nightfall without any chance of

being fully perceived by her. Resembling more a Greek statue than a real being, Louis

attains in Babette's eyes the rank of a mythical creature the spiritual symbolism of which

becomes the main issue. In this perspective, the mystery of vampiric whiteness reminds

one of another ambiguous white creature of popular literature: Moby Dick.

L'épopée de la chasse à la Baleine Blanche, chez H.Melville, retrace la course merveilleuseet terrifiante d'un voyage initiatique. Deux récits sont juxtaposés, l'un réel, l'autre mythique, quis'enflent jusqu'aux proportions gigantesques du fantastique [...]. Plusieurs thèmes s'entrelacent:à la description historique et rigoureuse du fonctionnement d'un baleinier, de la vie des marins,au témoignage sur les lois économiques d'une époque, se superpose la quête psychique despersonnages: [...] Moby Dick représente un être à la fois fabuleux et terrifiant. Le plusexceptionnel des cachalots, selon la légende, elle (il, dans le texte anglais) possède les donssurnaturels d'ubiquité (omniprésence dans l'espace) et d'immortalité (ubiquité dans le temps).45

It can seem strange to compare vampires' pallor with Moby Dick's whiteness.

Apparently, there is nothing in common between a whale and an immortal bloodsucker

except for the colour. However, further thinking allows one to draw several parallels

between these two hunted predators: both seem to mock time and space, defy their hunters'

eyes, and let us imagine more important issues than their primary appearance suggests.

Vampires and Moby Dick are white but nonetheless obscure symbols of something else,

pale entities endowed with an abstruse meaning:

But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appealswith such power to the soul, and more strange and far more portentous- why, as we have seen,

44 Interview with the Vampire, pp5245 Le Vampirisme, p.81

21

it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian'sDeity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind.

Is it by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of theuniverse, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding thewhite depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour asthe visible absence of colour, and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for thesereasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows- acolourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink?46

Moby Dick's whiteness seems similar to that of the vampire: far from being a

characteristic which helps to depict it, it enhances its unrepresentable aspect. Indeed white

symbolizes but one clear thing about the whale and the vampire, that is to say their

symbolical "indefiniteness". Once more one comes up against a paradox concerning

vampiric representation! The vampire's pallor conjures up an unfathomable symbolism

with multiple echoes, and therefore one cannot expect to attain any ultimate truth through

it:

Melville shared the concern for the symbolic meaning of things. '...some certainsignificance lurks in all things,' he says, 'else all things are little worth.' What significance thewhiteness of the whale has, for example, he tells us in a chapter famous for its unlimitedsuggestiveness. [...] Melville instructs us in symbolic interpretation. He arms us with the verylesson that Ahab finds so tormenting, the ambiguity of truth- ambiguous because perceivedanew by every individual -the shifting, sliding surface of nature that he assails as a 'pasteboardmask' and behind which he seeks to penetrate at last the inscrutability of God. The symbolicmethod of the book, therefore, is one of its primary meanings: where ambiguity is of the natureof things and inscrutability a divine attribute, man's search for absolute truth will necessarilyend in disaster. The truth glimpsed in moments of intuition can never be permanently fixed. [...]The book, in fact, begs for interpretation [...].47

Thus Moby Dick's whiteness does not help to grasp anything of the whale's

significance, and in the same way vampiric pallor teaches the vampires' pursuers nothing.

Vampiric skin remains a blank page concerning its own symbolism: more than a sheer

symbol, it is as well thought-provoking about the issue of symbolism itself as a tempting

offer to append one's interpretation to it. But whiteness is not the only symbol used as an

attempt to depict the vampire.

46 Herman MELVILLE, Moby Dick (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics, 1993), pp.160-16147 Herman MELVILLE, Moby Dick, intr. Sherman PAUL, (London: Everyman's Library, 1965), pp.viii-ix-x

22

2.Blood, teeth and stakes: The vampire-Grail

Le Nouveau Testament enseigne que le Christ a sauvé l'homme en versant son sang. Avantde subir le martyre de la croix, le Christ a lui-même implicitement souligné la valeurrédemptrice de son précieux sang, sous l'espèce symbolique du vin partagé, lors de la Cène,avec ses disciples, au même titre que le pain. L'Evangile de saint Jean insistant sur les vertusgénératrices du sang, les premiers Pères de l'Eglise doivent lutter contre une interprétation troplittérale de ce repas car elle risque d'encourager le retour à des pratiques païennes comme lessacrifices humains ou le cannibalisme rituel. [...] le sang, dans le monde chrétien médiéval, estchargé de pouvoirs surnaturels qui ont été réinvestis par la démonologie, d'où est issue lacroyance aux vampires. Au XIe siècle, l'idée de la valeur rédemptrice du sang et uneinterprétation abusive du culte de la Vierge Marie amènent des sorciers ou des médecins àprescrire de boire le sang immaculé de jeunes filles vierges pour combattre toutes sortes demaladies et retarder les effets de la vieillesse.48

The blood motif is almost indissociable from the vampire: indeed this creature of

the night is a well-known bloodsucker. Yet one can wonder why such a motif has always

been associated with him. The reason for it seems however quite simple: blood has always

been presented as being endowed with fantastic properties, and to some extent remains

even nowadays mysterious as a symbol. Like vampiric whiteness, already evoked above,

blood is conspicuous by its ambiguity as far as meaning is concerned. It is consequently a

perfect means of representation of the vampiric state.

One night, instead of the voice I was accustomed to hear in the dark, I heard one, sweet andtender, and at the same time terrible, which said, 'Your mother warns you to beware of theassassin'. At the same time a light unexpectedly sprang up, and I saw Carmilla, standing, nearthe foot of my bed, in her white nightdress, bathed, from her chin to her feet, in one great stainof blood.49

In this excerpt, Carmilla is completely associated with blood: the vital substance

drawn from her victim finally represents the female vampire. Blood seems here to be the

stain, the brand which makes representable what is usually unrepresentable: it has a

revealing power which can be compared with that of "her white nightdress". Indeed blood

is a corollary of the vampiric presence exactly like the vampire's whiteness is, and when it

is visible, it becomes the explicit expression of the vampire. A strange phenomenon of

substitution occurs then:

There was no colour upon her cheek, not even upon her lip; yet there was a stillness abouther face that seemed almost as attaching as the life that once dwelt there:- upon her neck and

48 Jean MARIGNY, Sang pour sang, le réveil des vampires (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), pp.19 to 2149 Carmilla, p.283

23

breast was blood, and upon her throat were the marks of teeth having opened the vein:- to thisthe men pointed, crying, simultaneously struck with horror, 'a Vampyre, a Vampyre!' 50

In this passage, Lord Ruthven's victim has kept the bloody brand of her predator.

The vampiric bite and the pool of haemoglobin it invariably involves become the manifest

image of the vampire for the servants who discover Ianthe's corpse. This complete mental

confusion which mixes up the vampire and his trace even materializes itself in speech:

indeed, gore literally becomes the vampire, as both almost merge into one motif. This

paradoxical process is perhaps only revealing of the intrinsic ambiguity which already

exists in the symbolism of blood:

Le sang ne se réduit pas au viscéral et il joue, dans l'imagination de l'homme, un rôlesymbolique essentiel. Premier principe vital, il est perçu comme un liquide nourricier etbienfaisant que l'on pare de toutes les vertus lorsqu'il circule normalement au sein del'organisme, mais il évoque également la violence, la souffrance et la mort dès qu'il s'écoule audehors et devient visible. Cette ambiguïté fondamentale fait que le sang évoque toutes sortes devaleurs qui sont, tour à tour, positives et négatives.51

Indeed, even if in Reinfield's eyes, 'The blood is the life! the blood is the life!',52 the

meaning of this symbol is not so simple. Blood is an ambiguous fluid open to many

interpretations. Its paradoxical status evoking both life and death endows it with an aura of

mystery which obviously raises interrogations:

'When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, andwith the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must eithersuffocate or swallow some of the- Oh my God! my God! what have I done?'53

Mina is forced to drink Dracula's blood, and now seems frightened up to the point

of being unable to utter a single word when she evokes this event. A verbal ellipsis

interrupts her story and revealing words come to her mouth: indeed, Mina's deed can be

interpreted in different ways. Not only is it obviously strongly connoted sexually speaking,

but it also evokes the Christian rite of Communion: Dracula takes the place of Jesus Christ

in Mina's mind, and the blood gushing out of the wound on his side reminds one of Christ's

martyrdom. Thus Mina drank from the source which was supposed to remain symbolical: it

is no longer wine in a cup, but real blood in a flesh-made receptacle! Throughout the50 The Vampyre, p.1251 Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, p.53952 Dracula, p.18453 Ibid., p.371

24

unconscious mental process of misrepresentations used to elude conscious restraint,

Dracula embodies for Mina the terrestrial access to the inscrutable divine secrets. Indeed

blood, and vampiric blood in particular, seems to open the door to divine omniscience:

Now my fear is this. If it be that she can, by our hypnotic trance, tell what the Count seeand hear, is it not more true that he who have hypnotize her first, and who have drink of hervery blood and make her drink of his, should, if he will, compel her mind to disclose to himthat which she know?54

In Van Helsing's opinion, blood appears to be endowed with an amazing power, that

of infinite divine knowledge as far as human minds and souls are concerned. As soon as

Dracula and Mina have drunk each other blood, they find themselves gifted with the divine

ability to look into the inscrutable secret of minds. Perhaps one can attempt to explain why

such a taste for blood exists in vampire stories: this mysterious vital fluid is supposed to be

the seat for a lost secret, a mythical source of knowledge, as is also the Grail in Chrétien de

Troyes's Perceval ou le Roman du Graal:

Le thème central en est le Graal, ce vase merveilleux dont on trouve la trace dès le XIesiècle, mais qui devait jouir déjà antérieurement d'une certaine faveur. Chrétien de Troyes, parune trouvaille remarquable, après l'avoir présenté en quelques lignes, le cachera sous un voilepour ne le laisser que mieux apparaître, de telle sorte qu'il rayonne à travers tout son longpoème.55

Here one can notice a puzzling analogy with vampire stories: the vampire, which is

but a metaphorical Grail for his hunters, is as elusive in the narrative as the holy cup can be

in Chrétien de Troyes's story. Both are only suggested, described thanks to indirect sources

or testimonies, and contain blood whose significance remains obscure. As it triggers

endless and unbearable conjectures, vampires and human beings metaphorically try to

fathom this secret of blood, in order to solve its mystery: stakes and vampiric canines are

therefore revealing tools. The almost pathological obsession with a physical penetration of

the flesh seems actually to betray a repressed desire to solve the mystery of blood.

Bloodsheds are thus indirect satisfactions: making blood visible and drinking it are but

desperate attempts to grasp this symbolical treasure.

54 Ibid., p.41555 Jean-Paul ROUX, Le Sang, Mythes, symboles et réalités (Paris: Fayard, 1988), p.306

25

3.Locks, keys and chests: the treasure motif

L'abbé Sérapion se munit d'une pioche, d'un levier et d'une lanterne, et à minuit nous nousdirigeâmes vers le cimetière de ***, dont il connaissait parfaitement le gisement et ladisposition. [...] posant à terre sa lanterne, il glissa la pince dans l'interstice de la pierre etcommença à la soulever. La pierre céda et il se mit à l'ouvrage avec la pioche. Moi, je leregardais faire, plus noir et plus silencieux que la nuit elle-même; quant à lui, courbé sur sonoeuvre funèbre il ruisselait de sueur, il haletait, et son souffle pressé avait l'air d'un râled'agonisant [...] Enfin la pioche de Sérapion heurta le cercueil dont les planches retentirent avecun bruit sourd et sonore, avec ce terrible bruit que rend le néant quand on y touche; il enrenversa le couvercle, et j'aperçus Clarimonde pâle comme un marbre, les mains jointes; sonblanc suaire ne faisait qu'un seul pli de sa tête à ses pieds.56

One can only be amazed by the extraordinary suggestive power of this scene:

Serapion's feverish excavation conveys all the intense suspense of Stevenson's Treasure

Island. If the abbot has obviously nothing of a pirate, his determination to unearth

Clarimonde's coffin, however, somewhat looks like that of Long John Silver's one! His

behaviour reminds us of that of grave robbers, and if readers were deprived of context,

they could even believe that this scene is part of a treasure hunt story. But instead of the

expected chest filled with jewels and gold, both gravediggers and readers are abruptly

confronted with the vampire's body. The treasure motif is thus powerfully suggested to the

readers, as it is also in this extract:

The stranger took a roll of paper from his pocket, and spread it on the worn surface of atomb that stood by. He had a pencil case in his fingers, with which he traced imaginary linesfrom point to point on the paper, which from their often glancing from it, together, at certainpoints of the building, I concluded to be a plan of the chapel. He accompanied, what I mayterm, his lecture, with occasional readings from a dirty little book, whose yellow leaves wereclosely written over. [...] then they began measuring distances by paces, and finally they allstood together, facing a piece of the side-wall, which they began to examine with greatminuteness; pulling off the ivy that clung over it, and rapping the plaster with the ends of theirsticks, scraping here, and knocking there. At length they ascertained the existence of a broadmarble tablet, with letters carved in relief upon it.

With the assistance of the woodman, who soon returned, a monumental inscription, andcarved escutcheon, were disclosed. They proved to be those of the long lost monument ofMircalla, Countess Karnstein.57

Once more here treasure hunt and vampire hunt subtly merge into one another

thanks to a similar research protocol. The use of maps and measurements definitely evokes

treasure hunters' traditional methods, and readers could find themselves expecting to

discover the usual cliché of the red cross indicating the hiding place of the hoard of money.

56 La Morte Amoureuse, p.11057 Carmilla, p.313

26

However the analogy does not go any further, as both readers and hunters are confronted

with Carmilla's lair. The implicit comparison of the vampire with a hidden treasure to be

discovered sometimes appears quite unexpectedly:

As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle ofbank-notes and a stream of gold fell out.58

Dracula "drains away" as a treasure chest with a hole, whereas the readers could

expect to find a stream of blood. Thus vampire and gold merge almost literally into one

same motif, which is that of treasure. But even if the vampire is bodily associated with

material wealth, it remains however hardly attainable for hunters. Such a wealth is

invariably locked up in order to be kept secret, and the required key which could open this

vampiric treasure is obviously well concealed:

I looked for the key, but it was not in the lock, and I could not find it anywhere. The onlything I found was a great heap of gold in one corner- gold of all kinds, Roman, and British, andAustrian, and Hungarian, and Greek and Turkish money, covered with a film of dust, as thoughit had lain long in the ground. [...] At one corner of the room was a heavy door. I tried it, for,since I could not find the key of the room or the key of the outer door, which was the mainobject of my search, I must make further examination, or all my efforts would be in vain. [...] Imade a discovery. There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a pile ofnewly dug earth, lay the Count![...] I thought he might have the keys on him but when I went tosearch I saw the dead eyes, and in them, dead though they were, such a look of hate, thoughunconscious of me or my presence, that I fled from the place, and leaving the Count's room bythe window, crawled again up the castle wall.59

Strangely enough, Harker openly admits his complete disinterest in the pile of gold

that he finds in Dracula's lair, and suggests that it is not really the kind of treasure he has

been expecting. Indeed, Jonathan claims that he only looks for the key which will allow

him to leave the castle. However, his research leads him to the only treasure which he

dreams of without confessing it, that is to say the vampire himself. The young barrister

hopes that he will find "the keys on him", which is quite eloquent: vampire and key are

intimately associated in his mind, for Harker also looks for intellectual keys which will

allow him to understand the vampire's mystery. As a result the repressed issue of his

research seems to be the discovery of the key to undestanding symbolism concerning the

58 Dracula, p.39459 Dracula, pp.66.67

27

vampire. Obviously enough, the character who is in the best position to hold that key is the

vampire itself:

'Escape- escape for your life', cried the tempter; 'break forth into life, liberty, and sanity.Your social happiness, your immortal interests, perhaps, depend on the choice of this moment.-There is the door, and the key is my hand. Choose -choose!' -'And how comes the key in yourhand? And what is the condition of my liberation?'.60

Melmoth offers Monçada the key which will free him from the Inquisition's jail, but

the Spaniard's reluctance to take it suggests that it will offer him an access to something

else. The key which unlocks the vampiric treasure seems to open a symbolical chest that

conceals a mystery. Each character fears to open what could be another Pandora's box, and

consequently experiences a certain restraint in being confronted with that unknown secret:

The remainder of the day was passed in gloomy and anxious deliberation, -in traversing hislate uncle's room, -approaching the door of the closet, and then retreating from it [...].61

Young Melmoth feels afraid of the knowledge he could disclose by unlocking the

door containing his ancestor's portrait. However he has to fight against the repressed desire

to satisfy his curiosity. The symbolical chest composed of the locked room hides

Melmoth's treasure of mystery, a hidden secret hardly utterable, as the testament of

Melmoth's uncle suggests:

I also enjoin him to search for a manuscript, which I think he will find in the third andlowest left-hand drawer of the mahogany chest standing under that portrait [...]. He may read itif he will; -I think he had better not. At all events, I adjure him, if there be any power in theadjuration of a dying man, to burn it.62

Once more the vampiric treasure -this time in the shape of a manuscript- is

carefully locked up in a chest. Young Melmoth's uncle advises his nephew to burn this

secret, a thing which, paradoxically enough, he did not do before! This choice betrays his

deep interest in the vampire-treasure which is officially rejected but unofficially desired.

The symbolical chest represented by vampires' coffins seems to conceal revelations both

expected and feared, but their nature remains unknown. One fully realizes the thought-

provoking power of a sheer box, whose exterior strongly evokes the interior: the container

60 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.5861 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.2262 Ibid., p.21

28

suggests the content. No wonder then if vampires' coffins become the object of the

characters' undivided attention and reflection:

[...] the coffin lay in our bedroom, where she watched it often by the hour when it was new,as if the thing were moving or alive or unfolded some mystery to her little by little, as things dowhich change. But she did not sleep in it. She slept with me.63

Claudia is only a newborn female vampire, but she already suspects that her brand

new coffin -which is supposed to contain her own body during the day- shall certainly

contain something else, must undoubtedly hide a secret. But as coffins dissimulate

mysterious creatures themselves supposed to be dissimulating mysteries, the confusion of

the two ends up being quite... confusing! Indeed the vampire's coffin reflects a well-known

aspect of the vampire itself, that is to say elusiveness: one of the obvious primary features

of a coffin is concealment. Coffins are the vampire's own image: when open, they offer a

vacant space to human sight, and when closed, they do nothing but suggest its presence.

Unfolding the mystery of the vampire-treasure thanks to the exploration of this similarity

between container and content thus appears quite legitimate. That comparison is even

explicitly used further on:

It makes itself known to me so slowly, so incompletely! You see, it's as if you've cracked adoor for me, and light is streaming from that door and I'm yearning to get to it, to push it back,to enter the region you say exists beyond it! When, in fact, I don't believe it. The vampire whomade me was everything that I truly believed evil to be: he was as dismal, as literal, as barren,as inevitably eternally disappointing as I believed evil had to be ! I know that now. But you,you are something totally beyond that conception! Open the door for me, push it back all theway.64

Louis here compares Armand to a kind of key which will allow him to unlock the

door to mystery: the old vampire becomes the container of an approach to an intellectual

treasure made of understanding and knowledge. Indeed, here readers reach the dizzy

heights of symbolical ambiguity: the vampire's body finds itself endowed with several

representations: it is both key and lock, both chest and treasure, both container and

content... Facing such a symbolical complexity, the last resort seems to be direct

confrontation with the undead while he is still in his coffin:

63 Interview with the Vampire, p.11564 Ibid., p.308

29

Then, when we get the opportunity that we seek, when none are near to see, we shall openthe box, and- and all will be well.65

Strangely enough, Van Helsing associates a confrontation with Dracula in his chest

with a quite vague completion. Here the extermination of the vampire does not explicitly

appear as the expected solving of the problem: it is rather a matter of intellectual discovery.

More than a mere killing, the ostensible issue of the vampire-treasure hunt is thus

understanding. The unsophisticated will of vampiric exhumation hides in reality a longing

for seeing the vampire while he is motionless and eventually trying to grasp something of

his mystery. That mystery remains the sole content of the treasure.

C. ATTEMPTS AT REPRESENTATION

1.Painting the unrepresentable

Oh! Comme elle était belle! Les plus grands peintres, lorsque, poursuivant dans le ciel, labeauté idéale, ils ont rapporté sur la terre le divin portrait de la Madone, n'approchent mêmepas de cette fabuleuse réalité. Ni les vers du poète ni la palette du peintre n'en peuvent donnerune idée.66

Clarimonde embodies the archetypal vampire figure, who remains unrepresentable

even through painting. Indeed as direct reports fail to give a satisfying image of that

creature, one could expect that the artist's paintbrush would somewhat succeed in

recreating an indirect representation of it.67 However, the vampiric image remains elusive:

even if paintings are often used to describe vampires' appearance, they seem to limit

themselves to unsatisfactory and rough portraits which remain conspicuous by their

vagueness.

"I don't know that the pictures were very good, but they were, undoubtedly, very old, andsome of them very curious also. They had, for the most part, the merit of being now seen byme, I may say, for the first time; for the smoke and dust of time had all but obliterated them.

65 Dracula, p.42166 La Morte Amoureuse, p.8067 see Max Milner's On est prié de fermer les yeux, p.265: "L'art, qui entretient la promesse et en diffère sans cesse l'accomplissement, est sans doute la seule voie qui permette de regarder l'image sans être guetté par les yeux de la mort".

30

'There is a picture that I have not seen yet,' said my father. 'In one corner, at the top of it, isthe name, as well as I could read, "Marcia Karnstein", and the date "1698"; and I am curious tosee how it has turned out [...].

The artist now produced it, with evident pride. It was quite beautiful; it was startling; itseemed to live. It was the effigy of Carmilla!

'Carmilla, dear, here is an absolute miracle. Here you are, living, smiling, ready to speak, inthis picture. Isn't it beautiful, papa? And see, even the little mole on her throat.'

[...] I was more and more lost in wonder the more I looked at the picture.[...] 'And now you can read quite plainly the name that is written in the corner. It is not

Mircia; it looks as if it was done in gold. The name is Mircalla, Countess Karnstein, and this isa little coronet over it, and underneath AD 1698'.68

Carmilla's portrait required an important work of restoration before being

observable again. The artist unveils an inconvenient veil made of soot and dust under

which the vampire's image was dissimulated, and reveals how Carmilla looks like to Laura

and her father. The result is quite unexpected for the readers: the text reads "It seemed to

live"! Everything works as if the lifeless picture substituted itself for the vampire,

depriving the latter of his own existence: indeed, by telling Carmilla "Here you are", Laura

reacts as if she had never seen her vampire companion before, and were literally

discovering her traits for the first time. But if the painting even tends to be more detailed

and attractive than the original, it nonetheless contributes to Carmilla's vampiric figurative

elusiveness: thanks to the textual trick of anagram, the female vampire escapes

representation once more, as her portrait apparently does not seem to fit in with her name.

Painting yet seems to succeed in capturing, albeit only scantily, something of the vampiric

look.

A sketch was all he'd done, a series of bold black lines that nevertheless made up my faceand shoulders perfectly, and the colour was already begun in dabs and splashes: the green ofmy eyes, the white of my cheek. But the horror, the horror of seeing my expression! For he hadcaptured it perfectly, and there was nothing of horror in it. Those green eyes gazed at me fromout of that loosely drawn shape with a mindless innocence, the expressionless wonder of thatoverpowering craving which he had not understood. [...]

And already there was begun in me the tingling of the monster that had killed, and wouldkill again, who was gathering up the painting now and starting to flee with it from the smallhouse.

When suddenly, up from the floor, the man rose with an animal groan and clutched at myboot, his hands sliding off the leather. With some colossal spirit that defied me, he reached upfor the painting and held fast to it with his whitening hands. 'Give it back!' he growled at me.'Give it back!' And we held fast, the two of us, I staring at him and at my own hands that heldso easily what he sought so desperately to rescue, as if he would take it to heaven or hell; I thething that his blood could not make human, he the man that my evil had not overcome. And

68 Carmilla, p.272

31

then, as if I were not myself, I tore the painting loose from him and, wrenching him up to mylips with one arm, gashed his throat in rage. [...]

I didn't know why I had taken the picture, why I'd fought for it so that it shamed me nowworse than the death, and why I still held onto it at the marble mantel, my head bowed, myhands visibly trembling.69

Here Louis is amazed at the extreme expressiveness of his own artistic

representation. Once more the vampire's painting apparently tends to reveal more than the

original model does, and even if Louis honestly confesses that he does not understand his

fatal obsession to steal his portrait from the artist, readers guess that that painting

succeeded in representing the picture of an unrepresentable creature, to express something

inexpressible. This is certainly why Louis's portrait unconsciously represents such an issue

for both the artist and the vampire: painting literally caught the vampire, captured him in

the limits of its frame. Thus the vampire longs to elude this representational jail in which

the artist emprisoned the only vampire's image he has, whereas the poor human being

desperately clings on to it.

[...] while attempting to open his vest, and give him air, his hand encountered a miniatureportrait close to the heart of the stranger. As he touched it, his touch operated on the patientwith all the force of the most powerful restorative. He grasped it with his own cold hand with aforce like that of death, and muttered in a hollow but thrilling voice, 'What have you done?' Hefelt eagerly the ribbon by which it was suspended, and, satisfied that his terrible treasure wassafe, turned his eyes with a fearful calmness of expression on Melmoth, 'You know all, then?'-'I know nothing,' said Melmoth faultering. The Spaniard rose from the ground, to which hehad almost fallen, disengaged himself from the arms that supported him, and eagerly, butstaggeringly, hurrying towards the candles, (it was night), held up the portrait full beforeMelmoth's eye. It was a miniature likeness of that extraordinary being. It was painted in acoarse and unartist-like style, but so faithfully, that the pencil appeared rather held by the mindthan by the fingers.70

Monçada's excitement and his possessiveness concerning Melmoth's miniature are

quite significant: indeed, to own the vampiric character's image amounts to own something

of the original creature itself. It seems that the portrait enclosed in the Spaniard's locket

shelters some paramount information about the immortal being; by saying, "You know all,

then?", Monçada betrays his conviction: he firmly believes that gazing at the vampire's

image discloses knowledge about it. This association of ideas is enhanced more explicitly

in the end, as readers learn about the illustration that "the pencil appeared rather held by

the mind than by the fingers": the issue of vampiric representation through painting is not69 Interview with the Vampire, p.27970 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.71

32

only sight but also learning and understanding. Pictorial representations as far as vampires

are concerned appear thus to harbour an invaluable secret which accounts for their owner's

reluctance to part with them, or even sometimes more radical reactions.

I enjoin my nephew and heir, John Melmoth, to remove, destroy, or cause to be destroyedthe portrait inscribed J. Melmoth, 1646, hanging in my closet.71

Young Melmoth's uncle reaction appears to be quite unexpected. For a long time

the old man has remained the sole holder of the elusive immortal's representation, but then

he strangely insists on the fact that the painting shall be destroyed after his death. Once

more this sudden will of eradication strongly contrasts with his stubbornness in keeping it

all along his life. Readers are forced to consider Melmoth's painting -and not Melmoth

himself- as the seat of a secret both unbearable and attractive. A strange substitution

occurs, and if the destruction of the portrait can assuredly not alter Melmoth's physical

existence, the old uncle yet puts emphasis on it. As it is the only attainable part of the

vampiric character, his pursuers are apparently tempted to suit the action to the word, and

actually attack the image they formely longed for.

[...] he suddenly perceived a locket upon her breast; opening it, what was his surprise atbeholding the features of the monster who had so long influenced his life. He seized theportrait in a paroxysm of rage, and trampled it under foot. Upon her asking him why he thusdestroyed the resemblance of her future husband, he looked as if he did not understand her-then seizing her hands, and gazing on her with a frantic expression of countenance, he bade herswear that she would never wed this monster, for he- But he could not advance- it seemed as ifthat voice again bade him remember his oath- he turned suddenly round, thinking LordRuthven was near him, but saw no one.72

The approach to the vampiric representation is unaccountably followed by the urge

to annihilate it. One can wonder about the usefulness of pursuing an elusive image which

will be destroyed when finally obtained. Aubrey himself does not really understand the

reasons for his appetite for destruction: he finds himself completely at a loss when his

sister demands rational explanations about his violent behaviour towards "the resemblance

of her future husband". Indeed to vent one's agressiveness on a picture does not make

sense, but Aubrey's verbal restraint suggests to the readers the reason for his outburst of

71 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.2172 The Vampyre, p.21

33

fury: it is the attempt to ease his mind of the unbearable and unmentionable vampiric

secret.

[...] he snatched the picture from his neck and trampling on it with true continental action,exclaimed, 'Devil! Devil! Thou choakest me!' and crushing the portrait, glass and all, under hisfeet, exclaimed, 'Now I am easier.'73

Monçada indirectly vents his anger on a mere pictorial reproduction of the "Devil"

that he blames for all his evils. The Spaniard's reaction looks like a concrete expression of

repression of Melmoth's image in a Freudian sense: the immortal's portrait seems

associated with an unbearable memory, or perhaps with a repressed need. By trampling the

image of Melmoth, Monçada indeed indirectly satisfies his unconfessed desire: he

unconsciously expects to get rid of the mental uneasiness from which he suffers when

confronted with the painting. However, what looks like a pathological reflex does not

always succeed in relieving the neurotic.

After a few moments, he raised himself with an unvoluntary start, and saw the picturegazing at him from its canvas[...]. he remembered the injunction of his uncle to destroy theportrait. He seized it; his hand shook at first, but the mouldering canvas appeared to assist himin the effort. He tore it from the frame with a cry half terrific, half triumphant; -it fell at hisfeet, and he shuddered as it fell. He expected to hear some fearful sounds, some unimaginablebreathings of prophetic horror, follow this act of sacrilege, for such he felt it, to tear the portraitof his ancestor from his native walls. He paused and listened: -'There was no voice, nor anythat answered;' -but as the wrinkled and torn canvas fell to the floor, its undulations gave theportrait the appearance of smiling. Melmoth felt horror indescribable at this transient andimaginary ressucitation of the figure. He caught it up, rushed into the next room, tore, cut, andhacked it in every direction, and eagerly watched the fragments that burned like tinder in theturf-fire which had been lit in his room. As Melmoth saw the last blaze, he threw himself intobed, in hope of a deep and intense sleep[...]. The wind was high that night, and as the creakingdoor swung on its hinges, every noise seemed like the sound of a hand struggling with the lock,or a foot pausing on the threshold. But (for Melmoth never could decide) was it in a dream ornot, that he saw the figure of his ancestor appear at the door? -hesitatingly as he saw him atfirst on the night of his uncle's death, -saw him enter the room, approach his bed,and heard himwhisper, 'You have burned me, then; but those are flames I can survive. -I am alive, -I ambeside you.'74

Young John Melmoth physically fought against the indirect origin of his mental

discomfort, that is to say Melmoth's portrait. However, despite the usual satisfaction which

derives from such a violent outlet, the vampiric image persists and creeps its way into the

field of his dreams, thus asserting its mental dimension: Memoth's last whispered words

73 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.7274 Ibid., p.60

34

appear as the indisputable evidence of it. Indeed, it does not matter if Melmoth's painting

burns, it will not eradicate the memory of it, or rather, the unbearable impression which has

been created by the sight of it. If consciousness cannot stand the revelation it suggests, its

unconscious expression will take refuge in dreams: painting and dream are therfore closely

linked as they both aim at rising to the surface the vampiric uncanny, or unheimlich:

"Unheimlich serait tout ce qui aurait dû rester caché mais se manifeste": ce qui nous surprendalors que nous aurions pu sans mal le découvrir bien connu, ce qui nous revient du dehors etqui faisait partie du dedans, bref, un refoulé qui fait retour de manière soudaine, aussi bien dansla vie quotidienne que sur la scène de l'art.75

One can ponder over the real meaning of such a disturbing impression suggested by

the vampiric image. If actually one becomes aware of the extraordinarily unsettling feeling

conveyed by the act of contemplating the vampire's portrait, the reason for it remains

nonetheless quite mysterious. However, as the inexpressible and hidden content of the

painting finally crops up in the field of dreams in the same encoded way, one can expect to

discover it thanks to a methodical interpretation of either of them.

Le rêve ne parle ni ne pense: Freud dit fortement qu'il est "un travail". Il le compare à unrébus: "Nos prédécesseurs, dit-il, ont commis l'erreur de vouloir l'interpréter en tant quedessin", alors que les petits dessins représentent, "sont là pour " des lettres, des syllabes, desmots à identifier et à rassembler en une phrase.76

The vampires' pictures and the dreams triggered by their contemplation

undoubtedly conceal the vampiric secret from everyone's eyes. Logically enough paintings

would be but the most tangible and perceptible representations concerning vampiric

characters: however the expected revelation hidden in them is unfortunately unreadable at

first sight. They are open to subjective interpretations, and consequently, one can wonder

whether they are anything but a new trick to elude any attempt of representation. Like

dreams, artistical depictions offer more doubts than certainties, and this might be the

unbearable secret which maddens the unfortunate discoverers, judging by this final ironical

excerpt:

'I'm not certain,' I said, unable to keep my eyes off that awful medieval Satan. 'I would haveto know from what... from whom it comes. Whether it came from other vampires... orelsewhere.'

'Elsewhere...' he said. 'What is elsewhere?'

75 Jean BELLEMIN-NOËL, Psychanalyse et Littérature (Paris: PUF, 1995), p.7576 Ibid., p.23

35

'That!' I pointed to the medieval picture.'That is a picture,' he said.'Nothing more?''Nothing more.'77

2.Disguising the unrepresentable: clothes, masks and theatre

' He was not in a riding dress, but muffled from head to foot in a long cloke, whose foldswere so ample as almost to hide the flanks of his beast. As soon as he was abreast with Aliaga,he removed that part of the cloke which covered his head and shoulders, and, turning towardshim, disclosed the unwelcome countenance of his mysterious visitor the preceding night.'78

Cinema and literature have amply contributed to spread the image of the vampire

wrapped up in his black cloack almost up to the level of the cliché. However when one

further ponders over the issues of such a recurring clothing motif, one is forced to admit

that it represents more than folklore, and that it has undeniably a functional role in the

vampiric representation. One of the primary defining functions of clothing remains indeed

to conceal the "ordinary unrepresentable", that is to say nakedness! When one becomes

more familiar with the nature of vampires, one fully realizes thus the determining issue

represented by a mere piece of cloth as far as vampiric representation is concerned:

[...] ce que l'abbé Sérapion m'avait dit des artifices du diable me revenait en mémoire;l'étrangeté de l'aventure, la beauté surnaturelle de Clarimonde, l'éclat phosphorique de sesyeux, l'impression brûlante de sa main, le trouble où elle m'avait jeté, le changement subit quis'était opéré en moi, ma piété évanouie en un instant, tout cela prouvait clairement la présencedu diable, et cette main satinée n'était peut-être que le gant dont il avait recouvert sa griffe.79

Romuald becomes aware of the gap which exists between Clarimonde's charms and

what he suspects to be her true nature. In order to express his strange feeling of doubt, he

uses a sartorial metaphor: he talks about the vampire's hand as a glove hiding the devil's

claw. One can be struck by the quite unexpected ability allotted to an item of clothing:

what is but a part indeed literally succeeds in disguising a whole. The vampire almost

vanishes under the costume which finally becomes the indirect expression of the creature

that wears it. The object represents the unrepresentable subject, the disguise stands then for

the disguised, and the domino takes the place of the vampire.

77 Interview with the Vampire, p.25378 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.44179 La Morte Amoureuse, p.87

36

'My dear child was looking quite beautiful. She wore no mask. Her excitement and delightadded an unspeakable charm to her features, always lovely. I remarked a young lady, dressedmagnificently, but wearing a mask, who appeared to me to be observing my ward withextraordinary interest. [...] A lady, also masked, richly and gravely dressed, and with a statelyair, like a person of rank, accompanied her as a chaperon.'80

In this excerpt, General Spielsdorf is confronted with Carmilla for the first time. As

the scene occurs at a fancy-dress ball, both the female vampire and her accomplice conceal

their faces behind enigmatic eye masks. However masks serve as a pretext for more

important issues: the mere fact of wearing a mask for the vampire conveys the will to keep

up a mystery. Spielsdorf's insistence on asserting that her daughter does not wear a mask

undoubtedly betrays his conviction that she strangely does not need one: she makes no

secret. Human representation is not as much at the centre of concerns as the vampire's one

can be, and gazing at the vampire's death mask is often accompanied by the compelling

need to throw it off:

'You have puzzled me utterly,' I said laughing. 'Is that not enough? Won't you, now, consentto stand on equal terms, and do me the kindness to remove your mask?'

'Can any request be more unreasonable?' she replied. 'Ask a lady to yield an advantage!Beside, how do you know you should recognize me? Years make changes.' '[...]how do youknow that a sight of my face would help you?' '[...] I may not like to be compared with whatyou remember me. You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange.'

'My petition is to your pity, to remove it.''And mine to yours, to let it stay where it is,' she replied.81

A genuine debate about the removal of the vampire's mask motivates the

protagonists. Spielsdorf's desire to look at the other side of the mask comes into conflict

with the lady's reluctance to slip it off. She keeps up her mystery by teasing the General

about the hidden issue of their argument: she guesses that Spielsdorf unconsciously expects

to unveil at last something of the unrepresentable vampiric image. This is the reason why

she returns him this meaningful answer: "how do you know that a sight of my face would

help you?". One eventually wonders if the mask is not but the discernible façade of a

masquerade, a deceitful set-up conceived by the vampire in order to lure human beings.

Thus the mask might hide either bluff or valuable mystery; however, as even bluff could be

a revelation for Spielsdorf, Carmilla's accomplice clearly points out that she actually leads

80 Carmilla, p.29781 Ibid., pp298

37

the dance. Indeed the poor value of the human image cannot compete with that of vampiric

representation: "You have no mask to remove. You can offer me nothing in exchange".

[...] I am satisfied that you did not see me; but if you now suspect, or, on reflection, shouldsuspect, who I am, I commit myself, in like manner, entirely to your honour. My daughter willobserve the same secresy, and I well know that you will, from time to time, remind her, lest sheshould thoughtlessly disclose it.82

The sheer act of wearing a mask gives a priceless value to Carmilla's image: as by

nature it both conceals and reveals parts of the vampire, this piece of disguise becomes the

centre of all human reflections, and even seems to offer opportunities to guess what the

disguised is made of. However, the nature of the mask reflects its owner's: it is ambivalent

and offers but paltry chances of discovery. Interrogations only lead to repressed personal

conjectures about the elusive vampiric image. In this way, masks indirectly reflect the

unbearable truth about the vampire's representation, that is to say its unrepresentable

aspect. Masks best convey how well vampires stand for human concerns which cannot and

must not be directly and openly expressed:

What they thought I was, I wasn't certain. An actor, like the others, who did not take off hispaint? It didn't matter.83

Painting and masks unexpectedly appear together in this excerpt. Louis's face

literally looks like a fake face deliberately hiding its owner's traits and displaying other

ones, as a stage actor's mask does. Masks are indeed inherent in theatre, of which they

perfectly serve one of the main purposes: actors imitate characters in plays which adapt

human life for the stage, just in order to make the audience think about it. Masks, theatre

and vampires are in the same way manifest representations of deeper intellectual concerns:

it is no wonder thus that they end up intermingling closely in vampire stories. As they are

supposed to harbour hidden meanings expressing themselves in a roundabout way, they

consequently require interpretations.

'And the vampires of the Théâtre...' I asked softly.'They reflect the age in cynicism which cannot comprehend the death of possibilities,

fatuous sophisticated indulgence in the parody of the miraculous, decadence whose last refuge

82 Carmilla, p.30283 Interview with the Vampire, p.271

38

is self-ridicule, a mannered helplessness. You saw them; you've known them all your life. Youreflect your age differently. You reflect its broken heart.'84

The vampire actors living in Armand's theatre feign life on the stage in order to

make a hidden comment on it for their audience. But they are vampires pretending to be

actors performing vampires on stage... This play within a play betrays the importance of

going beyond the surface of things as far as the vampire's representation is concerned. The

analogy between vampiric characters and theatre rests on the fact that both have a literal

level of understanding on which one must not stop in order to grasp the hidden meaning

which exists in them. Indeed, vampires and plays both share the same issues: they secretly

reveal more than they actually show, as they are privileged stages of expression for the

audience.

Pour les jeux et les enjeux de la tragédie, il faut se reporter aux recherches d'André Greenréunies dans Un oeil en trop. Dans son entrée en matière, celui-ci relève l'analogie entre lascène, séparée des spectateurs par une rampe lumineuse ou telle autre limite matérielle, et l'"Autre scène" où se joue le destin des pulsions, en marquant bien la nécessité des coulisses quidérobent le travail inconscient comme elles cachent l'appareil de la manoeuvre scénique. Ilinsiste sur le fait que la parole des acteurs enveloppe de présence physique, mouvante, émotive,le côté logico-grammatical du texte qu'ils parlent, en sorte qu'ils donnent l'illusion de la viequotidienne. Il assigne comme projet à une lecture psychanalytique "la recherche des ressortsémotionnels qui font du spectacle une matrice affective dans laquelle le spectateur se voitimpliqué et se sent non seulement sollicité mais accueilli comme si elle lui était destinée."85

Theatre and vampire go hand in hand: if the immortal character remains clearly

separated from human life, his theatrical representation tends to absorb both the audience

and the readers up to the point of finally involving them. Indeed the vampire's theatricality

works as an outlet for one's unconscious: it becomes the manifest expression on stage of

repressed desires and fears, after a complex process of intellectual disguise, in the same

way that Freud explained about dreams:

[...] si Freud avait ouvert la voie dans la direction de la fiction, il avait reculé devant lapoésie, lui qui néanmoins cite des poètes à chaque instant. Mais ses réflexions ont conduitanalystes et critiques à s'interroger sur la signification de ces grandes formes littéraires qu'onappelle les genres. A commencer par le théâtre, art du faire-voir et du faire-parler, dont la scènen'est pas innocemment mise en parallèle avec celle du rêve, plus largement celle del'inconscient.86

84 Interview with the Vampire, p.31085 Psychanalyse et Littérature, p.4786 Psychanalyse et Littérature, p.73

39

Dreams, theatre and vampires may thus fulfil the same figurative function: they are

mental compromise. They lend indirect forms of representation to unrepresentable

concerns, which are known but unconsciously repressed. Theatrical properties both conceal

and reveal the vampire's image, which itself disguises too unbearable or shameful an

implication to be openly shown.

3.Writing the unrepresentable: manuscripts and signs

One of the usual means which the characters of vampire stories resort to as an

attempt to represent the vampire is writing. Even though one has already become aware of

the elusive aspect typically conveyed and fuelled by writings about the vampire (see part

A.3.c entitled Textual deficiency), one has not explored yet the issues of such a recurring

obsession of putting him into words and of emprisoning his image within the limits of a

sheet of paper. Indeed manuscripts -as well as paintings- remain frequently used in novels

to depict vampiric characters, despite their manifest inefficiency to do it. Contrary to all

expectations, manuscripts however succeed in capturing within their leaves something of

the vampire's representation:

The stranger, slowly turning round, and disclosing a countenance which ---(Here themanuscript was illegible for a few lines), said in English --- (A long hiatus followed here, andthe next passage that was legible, though it proved to be a continuation of the narrative, wasbut a fragment). * * * * * * *

* * * * 87

Even though the ellipses in Stanton's manuscript apparently bring no information

about Melmoth's indescribable aspect, their presence in the text fuflfil a decisive function

for the readers. Indeed the Englishman's damaged report becomes accessible within

Maturin's novel, as the latter offers readable accounts instead of illegible ones. The author's

arbitrary recreation of the deteriorated original text thus tends inevitably to be a kind of

characterization of Melmoth's elusive image ("Here the manuscript was illegible for a few

lines" or "A long hiatus followed here"), which reveals more than it conceals about

Melmoth's representation. Indeed manifest signs of the inexpressible are better than the

inexpressible itself! Not only do asterisks stand there in order to convey the original text's

87 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.31

40

gaps, but they also act like lexical touches added to the vampire's depiction. Actually

words and typographical signs evoking absences end up working as figurative tokens

which indirectly let readers catch a glimpse of the original vampiric character.

The last lines of the manuscript that were legible, were sufficiently extraordinary. * ** * * * *88

Ironically enough the excerpt above well demonstrates how indirect typographical

prints can stand for expected revelations about vampiric depiction: asterisks actually cross-

refer to nothing "extraordinary". Indeed the meaning of words have not the capacity to

represent the vampire's image: their semantical content merely fails to do so. Actually,

what matters about the vampire's representation is not the text itself, but its textual ellipses

and typographical tricks: they are the only ones able to suggest an idea of the vampire's

image. The signifier ends up being substituted for the signified: written signs almost take

the place of the vampire, and even sometimes unsettle their user .

Of course he wanted to be with me; but then the boat service would, most likely, be the onewhich would destroy the... the... the... Vampire. (Why did I hesitate to write the word?)89

Mina's confession is quite revealing. As she has remained for a long part of the

story the archetypal writer figure as well as the emblematical chronicler, the hidden

representational power of writing obviously affects her more than anyone else. The word

"Vampire" conjures up too openly for her the unbearable creature's image which is

associated with it: the direct written form remains a painful and unconfessed memory that

Mina can hardly stand. Asterisks and gaps in the texts thus work as typographical

disguises: they are indirect representations of the vampire, manifest expressions of the way

-unconsciously repressed- in which one usually "writes" the vampire.

Here a very odd thing occurred. Whilst still asleep she took the paper from her breast andtore it in two. Van Helsing stepped over and took the pieces from her. All the same, however,she went on with the action of tearing, as though the material were still in her hands; finally shelifted her hands and opened them as though scaterring the fragments.90

88 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.5989 Dracula, p.45590 Dracula, p.198

41

The complex process of repression concerning vampire writings sometimes

expresses itself more explicitly. The excerpt above shows how Lucy Westenra actualizes

her unconscious desire to repress the written form of Dracula that she holds. By tearing up

the memorandum relating the story of her confrontation with the vampire, Lucy literally

gets rid of his manuscript representation. She concretely represses something which was

already hidden in her breast, that is to say the vampire's direct image coded into writing.

Actually, the symptomatic act of going on tearing up a paper which is no longer in her

hands betrays the figurative value of writing for Lucy. Tearing up the memorandum is but

the indirect way to satisfy her desire to ease her mind of the vampiric image's memory.

One has to admit after a close reading of the previous paragraphs that

"unrepresentable" remains paradoxically enough a representative adjective when writing

about vampires. Whether they simply refuse to be represented or comply with metaphorical

forms of depiction, vampires always succeed in denying direct attempts to approach their

image. One can only experience it thanks to other people's mental work to express it,

through their mere account of visible absences, or their use of symbols and artistical means

which end up being but signs of his absence! As the impossibility to confront directly with

the vampire tends to be the sole trait which characterizes it, one can but resign oneself to

picture him indirectly thanks to others' perception:

When I listen to music, your image floats on every note, -I hear you in every sound. Themost inarticulate murmurs that I produce on my guitar (for I am very ignorant) are like a spellof melody that raises a form indescribable -not you, but my idea of you. In yourpresence,though that seems necessary to my existence, I have never felt that exquisite delightthat I have experienced in that of your image, when music has called it up from the recesses ofmy heart.'91

Immalee confesses here that her music -which is already but an indirect way

through which Melmoth expresses himself- represents to some extent the "indescribable"

immortal wanderer. However, Immalee's also points out this same representation as being

her "idea" of Melmoth, that is to say her personal mental conception of the vampiric

character. Thus music seems only a manifest expression of the mental image she created

and fixed in her thougths, the indirect outlet for a repressed memory buried in "the

91 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.353

42

recesses" of her mind. However, the underlying psychoanalytic issue of the vampire's

image ends up being even more complex when Immalee admits that her self-made image

of Melmoth tends to satisfy her more than his actual presence: the vampire's image

therefore clearly betrays other deep psychological concerns.

Ce qui nous intéresse et nous préoccupe vient prendre le place de ce qui nous est étranger etne nous intéresse pas encore. Les reflets de nos idées troublent nos perceptions nouvelles.92

One understands better how the unexpected attempts to represent vampires can

indirectly stand for the disguised satisfaction of unconscious thoughts: what actually

interests characters like Immalee seems not to be Melmoth's image, but the repressed idea

which is associated with it! As a result one finds oneself confronted with a repression

within a repression: even though the various means of depicting the vampires remain

manifest representations of the vampiric character's repressed image, the latter itself seems

to be the figurative expression of other intellectual concerns! One can indeed consider

vampires and vampire stories as the reflections of one's unconscious ideas, the disguised

expression of one's inner secret expectations, made unrepresentable by a psychic process of

misrepresentations and substitutions:

Claude Kappeler a parfaitement trouvé que, "si le vampirisme fascine, c'est qu'il représenteavec force une image de l'homme contemporain", l'image d'un mort vivant. Il projette en avantl'angoisse de la mort, d'une mort -c'est maintenant un lieu commun de le dire- refusée, niée,occultée, donc enfouie au tréfonds du conscient, ce qui nous la rend d'autant plus redoutable.93

The vampire might well be the manifest projection of one's deepest repressed

concerns about life onto the stage of literature. Indeed unconfessed and unbearable

existential reflections find, thanks to the vampire figure, an ideal way to assert themselves

indirectly: that nocturnal creature shares with dreams the same power of concealment, and

the same ability to satisfy the urge to express the inexpressible, without departing from the

demands of decorum. The vampire conceals but does not completely hide, he lets us see

but does not openly display, suggests but never shows. His obvious abstruseness does

nothing but serve a helpful dreamlike ambivalence, behind which his secret function is

hidden:

92 Introduction à la Psychanalyse, p.5993 Le Sang, p.233

43

La nuit et ses ténèbres contribuent à épaissir le mystère qui entoure le vampire et à enréhausser l'ambiguïté fondamentale. Ce personnage fantasmatique semble en effet surgir, nonseulement du monde de la nuit, mais aussi de notre inconscient qui cherche à s'exprimer àtravers les rêves. Le vampire peut alors exprimer nos angoisses, mais aussi peut-être nos désirsles plus secrets et l'on est en droit de se demander si la relation qui s'instaure entre le prédateurqu'est le vampire et ses victimes ne traduit pas, dans une certaine mesure, les conflits intérieursqui existent en chacun de nous.94

The primary function of the unrepresentable aspect of the vampire figure in

literature might thus be the concealment of repressed psychological concerns. Such a

concealment obviously triggers interrogations about the content of those concerns, and the

inevitable consequence of wondering about the unrepresentable aspect of vampires seems

undoubtedly linked with a recurring motif in vampire stories: questioning undeniably

evokes the quest motif.

94 Le vampire dans la littéature anglo-saxonne, p.608

44

II. QUESTING AND QUESTIONING THE UNREPRESENTABLE FOR INTERPRETATIONS

Le vampire n'a certes pas attendu que les thèses freudiennes fussent connues pour faire sonapparition dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, mais on est frappé de retrouver dans la plupart deshistoires de vampires, y compris les plus anciennes, des situations qui rappellent ou annoncentles grands thèmes de la psychanalyse.1

One has realized how unrepresentable the vampire is through the close study of

chosen paragraphs, and to what extent his elusive and indirect representations share

similarities with dreams. Indeed one has observed that there do exist some repressed

concerns hidden behind the manifest vampire figure. As a result one has to admit the

psychoanalytic dimension of vampire stories, as their main character undeniably expresses

something buried in the unconscious, in a Freudian sense. One can consequently wonder if

in the same way, the quest motif which exists in any vampire story is not but the logical

expansion of a kind of "vampiric dream", beneath which another repressed motive is

concealed:

Nous comprenons maintenant combien il importe peu de savoir dans quelle mesure, grandeou petite, avec quel degré de fidélité ou d'incertitude on se souvient d'un rêve. C'est que le rêvedont on se souvient ne constitue pas ce que nous cherchons à proprement parler, qu'il n'en estqu'une substitution déformée qui doit nous permettre, à l'aide d'autres formations substitutivesque nous faisons surgir, de nous rapprocher de l'essence même du rêve, de rendre l'inconscientconscient. 2

Thus the desire to see the vampire's manifest image seems to be neither be the real

explanation for this obsession with depicting him, nor the reason for the frantic urge to

track him down. One can actually consider the traditional quest for the vampire as the

manifest expression of the unconfessed desire to understand his hidden meaning. Indeed it

seems that the quest in vampire stories deals less with hunting a physical aim than with

finding an answer to an intellectual issue which preoccupies human characters, vampires,

and readers. This fundamental questioning is the underlying component of the quest which

structures the narrative.

1 Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, p.6392 Introduction à la Psychanalyse, pp.100-101

A.ROMANCE AND THE VAMPIRIC QUEST

1. Structural similarities

Romance is naturally a sequential and processional form, [...]. At its most naive it is anendless form in which a central character who never develops or ages goes through oneadventure after another until the author himself collapses.[...] As soon as romance achieves aliterary form, it tends to limit itself to a sequence of minor adventures leading up to a major orclimacteric adventure, usually announced from the beginning, the completion of which roundsoff the story. We may call this major adventure, the element that gives literary form to theromance, the quest.3

When reading this excerpt, one realizes how close the structure of vampire stories is

to that of the traditional romance. In vampire stories one major characteristic of the main

character in is precisely his immortality, or rather his eternity: indeed the vampire figure

literally "never develops or ages" all along the narrative, thanks to the consumption of his

victims' precious blood. In his generic form, it has even succeeded in outliving several

generations of authors: his best representative still remains Dracula, whose fame has by far

exceeded that of his creator, Bram Stoker,4 and whose personality has kept on inspiring

new writers year after year. However, writers had not waited for Stoker's novel to establish

a canonical structure for vampire stories. Indeed usual vampire stories do not depart from

the successive preliminary misdeeds, always perpetrated undercover, of the immortal

villain. These first minor adventures can assume different forms, but quite often, a

preliminary and apparently innocuous introduction of the vampire to the other characters

precedes multiple and mysterious nocturnal aggressions.This is the case for Lord Ruthven,

who first makes friend with Aubrey in high society before secretly killing the young man's

fiancée (The Vampyre, pp.3 to 12); similarly enough, Laura and her father give assistance

to Carmilla and offer her hospitality, before being confronted with mysterious demises and

the female vampire's nocturnal harassment (Carmilla, chapter II to chapter VI). In almost

the same way, Dracula is to some extent legally ushered in Whitby by Harker, who

unintentionally leaves the vampire free to persecute Lucy up to her death (Dracula, chapter

I to chapter XII). As for Clarimonde, she seduces Romuald the priest during his ordination

3 Northrop FRYE, Anatomy of Criticism (London: Penguin, 1990), p.1864 The irony remains in the fact that Stoker used to be known only as "The man who wrote Dracula"... (see Jean MARIGNY's Dracula, collection Figures Mythiques)

before regularly puncturing her new lover's blood (La Morte Amoureuse, pp.77 to 106).

Finally Lestat charms Louis, and bleeds both him and Claudia to death in order to lead

them to countless murders (Interview with the Vampire, part 1, pp.5 to 116). As far as

Melmoth the Wanderer is concerned, even though the structure remains far more intricate

(as several narrative threads interweave around the same character), the pattern of

preliminary vampiric secret misdeeds nonetheless applies, even though it recurs for

different characters. Stanton and young John Melmoth (chapter III and chapter IV),

Monçada (chapter IV and chapter XI) and Immalee (chapters XV to XXIV, and chapters

XXXIV to XXXVII) have in turn been courted by and tormented with the damned and yet

attractive tempter, sometimes with tragical consequences. Melmoth's descendant is

harassed by the wanderer's portrait, the Englishman ends up in a lunatic asylum, the

Spaniard barely escapes both the Inquisition's jails and drowning, and finally Immalee

-known then by the name of Isidora- dies of exhaustion after delivering in a Spanish cell.

So the successive and minor vampiric misdeeds echo the minor adventures inherent

in traditional romance, and the tragical expected and inescapable event which characterizes

vampire stories corresponds to the usual climacteric adventure which defines the romance

itself. Indeed the climax of atrocities which the vampire commits often induces his

discovery, and the urge to track him down. In a word, it induces the vampiric quest. As a

result one already becomes aware of the puzzling similarity which exists between these

two literary forms, even though one can point out further elements about this structural

closeness:

The characterization of romance follows its general dialectic structure, which means thatsubtlety and complexity are not much favoured. Characters tend to be either for or against thequest [...]. Hence every typical character in romance tends to have his moral oppositeconfronting him, like black and white pieces in a chess game.5

This Manicheism remains inherent in vampire stories, even though one can

legitimately assert that they cannot be confined to such a simplistic view. Indeed vampiric

characters sometimes let one imagine that they are not as evil as one may first believe. This

is undeniably the case for Clarimonde and Carmilla whose manifest love for their victims

disconcerts the reader. In the same way, Melmoth and Lestat seem moved -albeit almost

5 Anatomy of Criticism, p.195

imperceptibly- respectively by Immalee and Claudia. Dracula's and Lord Ruthven's

emotional signs, even though far more subtle, show through beneath their impassiveness.

Anyway vampires share a common point: they kill, and as killers, they must be considered

as evil. This judgment disregards potential feelings, and definitely presents the vampire as

the immoral villain whom traditional heroes of the quest have to fight.

A quest involving conflict assumes two main characters, a protagonist or hero, and anantagonist or enemy [...].The enemy may be an ordinary human being, but the nearer theromance is to myth, the more attributes of divinity will cling to the hero and the more theenemy will take on demonic mythical qualities.6

Thus the dialectic structure of characterization in vampire stories perfectly squares

with the traditional criteria of romance: indeed the vampire -which obviously plays the part

of the antagonist or enemy- remains by definition the creature which is conspicuous by its

demonic mythical qualities! The best proof is that his opponents do not hesitate to talk

about him as a devil, and indeed the vampiric character uses evil preternatural powers as

well as cunning, temptation and possession (since vampire's victims become vampires too),

which are all attributes of Satan. Even though the vampire's infernal origin can easily be

proved, the protagonists rarely show undeniable attributes of divinity. Nonetheless those

heroes clearly side with God: Aubrey behaves as an old-fashioned courtly knight, both

Romuald and Sérapion are priests, General Spielsdorf acts as a crusader, Van Helsing looks

like the leader of a holy chivalrous brotherhood, and Melmoth's victims resist thanks to

their piety. This demonstrates how the processes of characterization in vampire stories

follow that of the traditional quest. However characterization cannot be sufficient to define

romance:

The complete form of the romance is clearly the successful quest, and such a completedform has three main stages: the stage of the perilous journey and the preliminary minoradventures; the crucial struggle, usually some kind of battle in which either the hero or his foe,or both, must die; and the exaltation of the hero. We may call these three stages respectively,using Greek terms, the agon or conflict, the pathos or death-struggle, and the anagnorisis ordiscovery, the recognition of the hero, who has clearly proved himself to be a hero even if hedoes not survive the conflict.7

6 Anatomy of Criticism, p.1877 Anatomy of Criticism, p.187

These successive stages which characterize the structure of the romance can also be

found in the vampiric quest. One has already seen how the secret vampiric misdeeds echo

the "preliminary minor adventures" of the quest. This first stage, which Northrop Frye calls

the agon, often includes a perilous journey, which can be found again in vampire stories:

Aubrey undertakes a long trip from Rome to Greece in The Vampyre, whereas Romuald

leaves (in his dreams?) his French village for Venice in La Morte Amoureuse. Stanton and

Monçada go to Ireland whereas Immalee leaves her Indian isle for Spain in Melmoth the

Wanderer, and even though Carmilla's setting already stands in Styria, the female

vampire's discovery requires a nominal journey. As for Harker's first travel from England

to Transylvania, it only echoes the final eastward pursuit in Dracula, whereas in Interview

with the Vampire Louis and Claudia leave New Orleans for a long tour in Eastern Europe

which ends in Paris. This clear geographical instability undeniably fits into the agon of the

quest.

The second stage of the quest, which Northrop Frye names the pathos, includes a

"crucial struggle" in which the hero has to challenge his evil enemy to a fight, sometimes

up into the latter's lair. This stage somehow expresses itself in the climactic moment of

vampire stories, in which the discovery of the foe and/or the first unsuccessful physical

confrontation between the vampire and his opponents occur. Usually no one dies in that

scene, except for the vampire's passive victim whose death nonetheless allows his fellows

to be meet the murderer. It is the case for Aubrey, who desperately attempts to intercept the

vampire when he discovers Ianthe's corpse in a hut, and afterwards deduces from the

abandoned dagger that Lord Ruthven and the "vampyre" are one and the same (The

Vampyre pp.12 to 18). In a different way, Laura's almost supernatural vision of Carmilla

-wearing a nightdress bathed in a stain of blood- leads to a revelation and a search which

are a prelude to Spielsdorf's violent brawl (Carmilla, chapter VIII to chapter XIV).

Similarly, Lucy's death and her killing as a vampire make Van Helsing and his fellows

aware of Dracula's existence (discovery), and trigger the formation of a brotherhood (see

p.280) which first unsuccessfully confronts with the vampire in Mina's bedroom (Dracula

chapter XIII to chapter XXI). As for Romuald, he becomes aware of Clarimonde's

vampiric condition and actually confronts with it at the same time, without being able to

resist as he thinks he is sleeping (La Morte Amoureuse pp.106 to 110). As far as Claudia

and Louis are concerned, their discovery of Lestat's ignorance entails their two failed

attempts to kill him (Interview with the Vampire, part 1, pp.116 to 174). Finally, the

intricate and fragmented structure of Melmoth the Wanderer first seems to elude that stage

of discovery and first confrontation, but a closer reading shows that it does not. Indeed the

narrative is riddled with the characters' fruitless first encounters, the intensity of which

peaks in parts telling the pursuers' physical closeness to the elusive wanderer. Thus one can

notice for instance young John Melmoth's climbing of the rocky promontory (end of

chapter IV), the deadly brawl of Immalee's (or Isidora's) servants against the wanderer

before the nocturnal wedding in the graveyard (end of chapter XXIV), and her brother's

duel against Melmoth (end of chapter XXXV). To some extent, one can even consider the

whole of Monçada's account (from chapter V to chapter XXXVII) as John Melmoth's first

introduction to his ancestor, before the second and final one.

The final stage of the quest, which Northrop Frye calls the anagnorisis, induces the

exaltation of the hero, an act of glorification which echoes the hunt and the final

confrontation with the vampire, which ends with his destruction. This pattern applies to

almost every vampire stories, as for instance Carmilla, in which the female vampire is

tracked down and executed in the most traditional way (chapter XV). It also applies to

Dracula, as Van Helsing and his companions pursue the vampire's convoy up to the

Carpathians, where Quincey finally succeeds in plunging his knife into the undead's heart

(chapter XXII to chapter XXVII). As for Clarimonde, Sérapion unearthes her coffin and

pitilessly reduces the female vampire to dust right before Romuald's eyes (La Morte

Amoureuse pp.110 to 112). Finally, two main searches and several executions come out of

the ending of Interview with the Vampire: Louis and Claudia leave for a quest for other

vampires in Eastern Europe, which ends in a deadly confrontation with a "mindless corpse"

(part 2, pp.175 to 218). They finally settle in Paris, where they unexpectedly discover

Armand and his vampiric coterie, which Louis eventually destroys with an avenging arson

after Claudia's murder (part 3, pp.219 to 344). Even though this pattern of hunt ending with

destruction works in the vampire stories mentioned above, it fails as far as The Vampyre

and Melmoth the wanderer are concerned: indeed destruction does not occur in those

narratives. However, another pattern of the quest apply in those cases, which is that of the

quest-myth:

First, the agon or conflict itself. Second, the pathos or death, often the mutual death of heroand monster. Third, the disappearance of the hero, a theme which often takes the form ofsparagmos or tearing to pieces.8

Lord Ruthven's fate for instance fits in with the structure of the quest-myth

described by Northrop Frye: the cynical vampire merely evades capture at the end of the

story, thus echoing the mythical disappearance of the hero (The Vampyre, pp.18 to 23). As

for the immortal wanderer, both his descendant and Monçada can but witness his

disappearance at noon, after a fearful night of dreadful sounds (Melmoth the Wanderer,

chapter XXXVIII and XXXIX). One can even wonder if the structure of vampire stories

does not on the whole fit in with the structure of the quest-myth, as destruction invariably

means immediate physical disappearance for vampires, or a beheading which undeniably

echoes the sparagmos inherent in the quest-myth.

As a result one can admit the clear structural similarity which exists between the

vampire stories and romances, and acknowledge that vampiric literature can be considered

as a form of literature of quest. Indeed the narrative pattern of the vampiric quest follows

the three different stages typical of the triptych-like structure inherent in the traditional

romance, as well as it respects the usual and Manichean structure of its characterization.

However the comparison with romance does not confine itself to structural similarities.

2. Thematical similarities of and latent motives for the quests

The quest for buried treasure has been a central theme of romance from the Siegfried cycleto Nostromo, and is unlikely to be exhausted yet. Treasure means wealth, which in mythopoeticromance often means wealth in its ideal forms, power and wisdom [...].9

Any quest obviously implies something which leads the main characters to involve

themselves in the quest, an object the discovery of which concludes the quest. As Northrop

Frye points it out, this object usually takes the shape of a material treasure, as is the case

for instance about the Holy Grail:8 Anatomy of Criticism, p.1929 Anatomy of Criticism, p.193

Le Graal qui allait devant était fait de l'or le plus pur. Des pierres y étaient serties, pierres demaintes espèces, des plus riches et des plus précieuses qui soient en la mer ou sur terre. Nulleautre ne pourrait se comparer aux pierres sertissant le Graal.10

Even though Perceval's quest for the Grail "means wealth", it remains an idealized

form of wealth: the luxurious cup which contains Jesus Christ's blood turns out to be an

invaluable source of wisdom. One can therefore legitimately wonder to what extent the

vampiric quest follows the pattern of traditional romance. If actually one considers without

too much reluctance the vampire as the physical treasure of the quest, his metaphorical

wealth does not seem so obvious. However one has to acknowledge that the vampiric quest

often revives traditional themes which remain ideals peculiar to romance.

a.A quest for love

Again, the reward of the quest usually is or includes a bride [...]. She is often to be found ina perilous, forbidden, or tabooed place [...] and she is, of course, often rescued from theunwelcome embraces of another and generally older, male or from giants or bandits or otherusurpers. The removal of some stigma from the heroine figures prominently in romance [...].11

The presence of a heroine stigmatized by the vampiric bite remains characteristic of

vampire stories. Ianthe in The Vampyre, Immalee in Melmoth the Wanderer, Laura in

Carmilla, Mina in Dracula and Claudia in Interview with the Vampire are manifest

innocent female victims, who must be rescued from the evil harassment of the vampire.

However one cannot ignore one of the most obvious and essential constituent elements of

the vampiric quest, which is characterized by the existence of a sub-quest within the main

quest. Indeed any vampire story stages vampire hunters looking for a creature, which was

first itself in search for a human prey. That human victim is the sole "reward" of the

vampire's quest, and often is a young woman (or an effeminate man), a "bride" discovered

in a dangerous place for a vampire, that is to say a civilized environment far from his

archaic lair. Thus the vampiric character looks like a kind of anti-knight, who "rescues" in

his own way -that is to say thanks to his vampiric embrace and bite- the heroine from

"usurpers", who "brand" her with a frustrating decorum. As a result the vampire's quest

works as a misrepresented romance in which traditional roles are reversed in an

10 Chrétien DE TROYES, Perceval ou le Roman du Graal (Paris: Gallimard, 1974), pp.92-9311 Anatomy of Criticism, p.193

unexpected way. This misrepresentation obviously echoes the psychoanalytic dimension of

dreams: the vampiric quest somewhat works as the manifest expression of the latent

traditional quest for love that is typical of romance. One can logically wonder how the

vampire's urge for questing for innocent victims actually betrays more emotional motives.

The vampire is prone to be fascinated with an engrossing vehemence, resembling thepassion of love, by particular persons. In pursuit of these it will exercise inexhaustible patienceand stratagem, for access to a particular object may be obstructed in a hundred ways. It willnever desist until it has satiated its passion, and drained the very life of its coveted victim. Butit will, in these cases, husband and protract its murderous enjoyment with the refinement of anepicure, and heighten it by the gradual approaches of an artful courtship. In these cases it seemsto yearn for something like sympathy and consent.12

This report from official sources which concludes the narrative of Laura's affair

with Carmilla has an essential value. Indeed it explicitly credits the female vampire with a

hypothetical and ambiguous form of love, which could temporarily exceed her predatory

instincts. Consequently vampiric love seems to be based on a compromise between animal

side and human side, which expresses through a sadistic affection perceptible in the text.

Mario Praz's The Romantic Agony reminds one that "The necessity of believing the lover to

be a monstrous creature is a characteristic of sadism": so Carmilla considers her lover as a

passive "object" and a "victim", despite her "artful courtship" and her "sympathy". The

story becomes a dark form of romance, telling the vampire's quest for an unrealizable love,

and her thirst for a complete fusion with the beloved being which ends in unwanted

vampirism.

At these words, the stranger, with an expression indescribable, leaned against a tree. Heviewed that lovely and helpless being, while he refused the fruits and water she offered him,with a look, that, for the first time, intimated compassion. [...] It was the first of his intendedvictims he had ever beheld with compunction. The joy, too, with which Immalee received him,almost brought back human feelings to a heart that had long renounced them; and, for amoment, he experienced a sensation like that of his master when he visited paradise, -pity forthe flowers he resolved to wither for ever.13

This excerpt well illustrates how Melmoth's affection for Immalee clearly shows

through his outwardly ill-intentioned look. Even though the evil wanderer's quest for the

young innocent woman apparently aims at corrupting her, a more emotional concern seems

to lead him irresistibly to her. Indeed a latent and somewhat repressed quest for love hides

12 Carmilla, p.31713 Melmoth the Wanderer, pp.284-285

beneath the damned soul's manifest quest for the Indian girl. As Melmoth's diabolical pact

tacitly prevents him from falling in love with a potential victim, he unconsciously satisfies

his thwarted desire in a roundabout way, which expresses through a psychic form of

vampirism, that is to say psychological harassment. Thus Melmoth openly harasses the

exclusive object of his frustrated quest for love, but suggests his dissatisfaction, as Dracula

does:

'The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:-'You yourself never loved; you never love! On this the other women joined, and such a

mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear it;it seemed like the pleasure of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my faceattentively, and said in a soft whisper:-

'Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past.'14

Dracula's vampire brides openly question their master's motives for his bloody

quest for women. They maliciously mock at the mighty predator, which for once literally

looks like the victim of unfair jeers! Even though Dracula's manifest violent quest for Lucy

and Mina lets one legitimately assume his ill-intentioned motives, the text rarely lets the

vampire express them. Indeed most of the time speech is denied to Dracula, and the

excerpt above remains perhaps the only allusion to the vampire's potential latent motive.

Thus Stoker very subtly draws the portrait of a quite traditional Byronic hero, whose

unrealizable quest for ultimate love is in keeping with a pattern of fatal and melancholy

romance.

Le thème de la mélancolie du vampire n'est qu'implicite dans Dracula. Pour lesprotagonistes, le comte est un personnage monstrueux dénué de toute sensibilité. L'aspecttragique du vampire, poussé à faire le mal par nécessité, tenaillé par le regret et condamné à lasolitude perpétuelle, apparaissait déjà dans La Morte Amoureuse, où Clarimonde pleurait àchaudes larmes chaque fois qu'elle devait sucer le sang de celui qu'elle aimait[...].15

The vampiric quest does not aim at spreading evil and corruption, but rather at

satisfying frustrated emotions and desires. Evil inclinations which express through a

manifest vampirism are neither objectives of nor stimuli to the quest, but symptomatic

misrepresentations of the traditional quest inherent in romance. Vampiric misdeeds actually

conceal the latent motive of the quest which initially remains close to one of the most usual

14 Dracula, p.5515 Jean GOENS, loups-garous, vampires et autres monstres, enquêtes médicales et littéraires (Paris: CNRS, 1993), p.84

ideals of romance, that is to say a brave fight for courtly love, as Clarimonde explicitly

asserts:

Je me suis bien fait attendre, mon cher Romuald, et tu as dû croire que je t'avais oublié.Mais je viens de bien loin, et d'un endroit d'où personne n'est encore revenu: il n'y a ni lune nisoleil au pays d'où j'arrive; ce n'est que de l'espace et de l'ombre; ni chemin, ni sentier; point deterre pour le pied, point d'air pour l'aile; et pourtant me voici, car l'amour est plus fort que lamort, et il finira par le vaincre.16

Like Carmilla, Melmoth and Dracula, Clarimonde's quest implies a perilous

journey from a forbidden place -which can be either hell or limbo- to her victim's world.

The excerpt above indicates that the motive which triggers the female vampire's departure

has nothing to do with evil. Indeed Clarimonde clearly asserts her concern:

"Je t'aimais bien longtemps avant de t'avoir vu, mon cher Romuald, et je te cherchaispartout."17

More explicitly than any other vampire, Clarimonde expresses that the vampire's

quest initially remains a desperate quest for absolute love. This thematical similarity which

perfectly fits in with the usual ideal of romance undoubtedly turns the traditional vampire

into a more pleasant character, a kind of dark romance's hero:

C'est pour cela qu'il faut avoir pitié du vampire. Monstre entre-deux, monstre de l'entre-deux, qui aspire (!) à être deux; maudit, privé de cette bénédiction divine qui a nom mort,oubli, décomposition. Monstre qui ne peut être que seul, puisqu'il ne fait jamais que rendrel'autre semblable à lui-même, assimilé à et en lui-même. Monstre qui ne peut connaître ladifférence d'avec l'autre, différence qui a nom amour ou haine [...]. Pitié donc pour le vampire,d'autant plus qu'en chacun de nous tous une part de nous aspire à le devenir, et que l'autre partredoute de le devenir.18

The vampiric character might to some extent take the value of the romance's hero, a

negative of the genuine courtly knight to which one can identify. In the same way, vampire

stories might be but misrepresented imitations of traditional romances, as one of the latent

motives of the vampiric quest turns out to be one of the most essential ideals of romance,

that is to say ultimate love. Indeed the best evidence of vampiric love is that vampires

always harass but a single victim at once. As a result they remain to some extent faithful to

their "bride", as is the case for Louis:

16 La Morte Amoureuse, p.10017 La Morte Amoureuse, p.10118 Jean-Pierre PICOT, in Les Vampires, Colloque de Cerisy-La-Salle, p.167

'But I was wondering... did you have a special feeling for Babette? Was it feeling forBabette all along that caused you to protect Freniere?'

'You mean love,' said the vampire. 'Why do you hesitate to say it?'[...] 'I had for Babette... a strong feeling. It is not the strongest I've ever known for a human

being.' He looked up at the boy. 'But it was very strong. Babette was to me in her own way anideal human being...'19

As Babette Freniere's brother was killed by Lestat, Louis regularly visits her, in

order to protect her and advise her. Even though Louis confesses his affection for the

young lady without difficulties, he however suggests that ideal love is not the only issue

which motivates him in his quest for her. Indeed, the young vampire does not really

consider her as a lover, but as "an ideal human being", which reveals that what interests

him seems less to be emotion than humanity. Louis's quest induces another aspect of the

vampiric quest, which deals with identity.

b.A quest for identity

La thématique du double [...] est corollaire de celle du vampirisme. Tous ses protagonistessont des êtres errants qui cherchent éperdument un double afin de rompre leur solitude.20

The quest for the vampire quite strongly evokes a quest for the other, or to be more

precise, for a humanoid creature which however does not exactly look like oneself.

Actually one can reasonably wonder about the real issue of obstinately hunting a genuine

fiend which is physically so close to its pursuers though. It seems that the quest for the

vampire is similar to the quest for a kind of dark double, which undeniably raises questions

about one's own self. Even though this quest for identity somewhat sounds like a cliché, it

remains a constituent characteristic of both traditional romances and vampire stories. The

trying adventures of the successive stages of the quest in which the protagonists are

involved often trigger an identity crisis:

Je ne pouvais plus distinguer le songe de la veille, et je ne savais pas où commençait laréalité et où finissait l'illusion. Le jeune seigneur fat et libertin se raillait du prêtre, le prêtredétestait les dissolutions du jeune seigneur. Deux spirales enchevêtrées l'une dans l'autre etconfondues sans se toucher jamais représentent très bien cette vie bicéphale qui fut la mienne.Malgré l'étrangeté de cette position, je ne crois pas avoir un seul instant touché à la folie. J'aitoujours conservé très nettes les perceptions de mes deux existences. Seulement, il y avait unfait absurde que je ne pouvais m'expliquer: c'est que le sentiment du même moi existât dansdeux hommes si différents.21

19 Interview with the Vampire, pp.66-6720 Mariska KOOPMAN-THURLINGS in Les Vampires, Colloque de Cerisy-La-Salle, p.8821 La Morte Amoureuse, p.105

Romuald's attraction to Clarimonde goes hand in hand with his doubt about his own

self, which nearly ends in schizophrenia. Indeed, everything works as if his quest for the

female vampire triggered a self questioning about his identity as an indivisible entity.

However Romuald only becomes aware, thanks to Clarimonde, that his original quest for

spirituality in religious ascetism does not actually fit in with his real desires. His

relationship with the female vampire leads him to another inner quest, which reveals to

him the unbearable repressed inclinations existing in every human being. In a word,

Romuald realizes with difficulty that ecclesiastical authorities impose a manifest identity

on him, which compels him to repress his own identity. Sérapion and the Church

Establishment associate libido with evil, and therefore condition people into denying this

essential constituent of human identity, which vampires reveal explicitly:

'You are mine, and shall be mine, you and I are one for ever.' [...] 'What can you mean byall this? I remind you perhaps of some one whom you love; but you must not, I hate it; I don'tknow you -I don't know myself when you look and talk so.' 22

In this excerpt, Carmilla openly reminds Laura of her real identity. Indeed the

female vampire confronts the young woman with a vampiric image which is a constituent

part of her own self, even though this part is repressed unconsciouly. No matter how much

Laura pretends to understand nothing, her manifest -and somewhat assumed- ignorance

suggests an identity crisis, and her attraction to Carmilla actually hides a quest for her own

identity. In the same way that the traditional quest finally reveals the main character as a

hero, the quest for the vampire ends up being a confrontation with oneself, a self

questioning which reveals one's own identity. This inner exploration leads to a sudden

revelation about what really constitutes the self:

Do you ever try to read your own face? I do, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, andgives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it.23

Lucy's warning -sent to her friend Mina- quite explicitly betrays a deep doubt about

her own identity. Indeed, in Laura's way, this inconstant young woman does not seem to

know herself, and proves to be puzzled when she ponders over her real self. The common

22 Carmilla, p.26423 Dracula, p.76

point between the two victims remains an active, albeit repressed, libido which the

vampires (Carmilla and Dracula) represent manifestly. Thus the confrontation with the

vampire seems to be a confrontation with a part of oneself, which triggers an inner quest

for an unsuspected fragment of one's own identity. Thanks to their nocturnal attackers,

vampires' victims become aware that they unconsciously claim a self which is not their

actual own, as it is dictated by decorum. Besides, this quest for identity quite fits in with

the vampire itself:

La recherche du moi n'est pas l'apanage de la seule victime. Le vampire, lui aussi, serecherche dans une certaine mesure à travers autrui, ce qui n'est pas surprenant de la part d'unpersonnage qui n'a ni ombre ni reflet et qui n'a donc pas de repère de sa propre identité. Ledrame du vampire, par ailleurs, est d'être différent des autres et, par conséquent, d'êtreterriblement seul.24

Even though the confrontation of the victims with the vampire undeniably raises

essential questions about their own identity as human beings, one cannot omit another

aspect of the vampiric quest which is that of the vampire himself for his own identity. This

quest may first appear of secondary importance, however it remains a characteristic

element of vampire stories. Indeed the typical urge for tracking down human preys often

goes hand in hand with the vampire's hope of solving his recurring identity crisis.

Obviously one has to admit that the humanoid creature's identity poses a problem:

'Who is among us? -Who? -I cannot utter a blessing while he is here. I cannot feel one.Where he treads, the earth is parched! -Where he breathes, the air is fire! -Where he feeds, thefood is poison! -Where he turns, his glance is lightning! -Who is among us? -Who?' [...].25

Father Olavida's interrogation expresses the justified uncertainties which exist

about Melmoth's identity. Even though the priest openly uses diabolical terms to talk about

the wanderer, his frenzied words betray his actual ignorance about the real identity of the

creature which he speaks of. Thus the almost obsessional recurrence of Olavida's question

brings up more than anything else the essential problem about the vampiric character's self.

Indeed the vampiric self does not seem obvious, as even vampires wonder about it, and

often fail in their attempts to define and understand themselves:

24 Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, p.67725 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.34

'And is it, then, in my power to confer happiness?' said her companion; 'is it for this purposeI wander among mankind?' [...] 'But what is your meaning, Immalee?' [...] 'What would youhave me do, Immalee?' [...] 'is this the destiny I am to fulfil? [...]'.26

Melmoth's psychological disarray can easily be perceived in this excerpt. Even

though this mighty immortal character first seems unshakeable, his words let one guess

that his apparent cynical steadiness is but a façade. Indeed Melmoth often suggests his

infernal nature to his victims, but his recurring questions to Immalee reveal that his identity

remains vague even to himself! As the vampiric self seems to be an indefinite thing,

Melmoth has to leave for a quest which expresses itself in the questioning of his favourite

female victim in whom he hopes to find the answer to his identity crisis. Thus the hunt for

human victims is not an end in itself but a desperate attempt at defining the vampiric self.

One can think that direct and often violent confrontations with human beings serve as a

kind of identity tests for the vampire:

'These friends' -and he laid his hands on some of the books- 'have been good friends to me,and for some years past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many,many hours of pleasure.Through them I have come to know your great England; and to knowher is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in themidst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all thatmakes it what it is.27

Even though cruelty towards his victims is a manifest aspect of Dracula's behaviour

throughout the novel, the actual motive for his original quest in England remains quite

vague for the reader. However in the excerpt above, the vampire's latent desire to

understand human identity shows beneath his deceitful speech to Harker. Indeed the direct

confrontation with living human beings seems to be the only way to understand himself for

a lonely being which has neither peers nor references -apart from books- to help him build

his own identity. As a result Dracula expects to learn more about his own self through a

kind of instinctive quest for and a fatal confrontation with "close cousins", embodied by

human beings living in London. Ironically enough, the vampiric quest for identity into

humanity turns out to be a constituent element of vampiric identity itself:

'[...] be prepared to act like what you are.'

26 Ibid., pp.309-31027 Dracula, p.31

' Which is what?' I asked him, because it had never seemed such a mystery to me as it did atthat time. 'What am I?' He was openly disgusted. He threw up his hands.

'Be prepared...' he said, now baring his magnificent teeth, 'to kill!'28

At first sight, Lestat's simplistic lesson does not seem to satisfy Louis's expectations

about his identity as a vampire. Indeed the young vampire openly expresses his difficulties

to understand and define what constitutes his own self. However Lestat's advice is quite

eloquent: the inherent aspect in vampire's identity remains the urge to kill human beings,

which actually means that his bloody quest for identity into humanity intrinsically makes

up the vampiric identity. In a word, what defines the vampire's self is the quest for the

vampiric self...

Toutes les histoires de vampire, quels que soient leur style et leur manière d'aborder lesujet, se fondent sur une immuable dialectique qui oppose le prédateur et ses victimes.L'existence même du vampire ne se justifie en effet que par rapport à un partenaire auquel ils'oppose et qui lui donne la vie au détriment de la sienne.29

The vampires' quest for and destruction of the others have no other motive than the

observance of a logic dictated by their own identity, but the urge for understanding this

predatory nature precisely remains the motive for their violent quest into humanity. To

some extent, vampires harass and kill their victims with the unconscious hope of

understanding why they actually do it. This somewhat existential quest betrays a spiritual

concern quite typical of vampire stories.

c.A quest for spiritual truth

'We are in God's hands; nothing can happen without His permission, and all will end well for those who love Him. He is our faithful creator; He had made us all, and will take care of us.'

'Creator! Nature!' said the young lady in answer to my gentle father. 'And this disease that invades the country is natural. Nature. All things proceed from Nature -don't they? All things inthe heaven, in the earth, and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains? I think so.' 30

Carmilla's fiery stand is quite typical of vampire figures. As a Byronic hero, the

vampire in dark romantic literature assumes a genuine sadistic behaviour because he firmly

believes that life does not originate in God but in nature. Thus vampiric characteristics

28 Interview with the Vampire, p.7129 Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, p.60930 Carmilla, p.270

such as misanthropy, crime and lust justify themselves, as those basic instincts belong to

the natural world too. One can notice that Carmilla explicitly considers nature as the

original Creator. In this way, the female vampire openly questions the usual bases of

religious beliefs about Genesis, and her defiant questioning -which somewhat reminds one

of Satan's- is equivalent to a provocative quest for spiritual truth inherent in both romances

and vampire stories. The pious hero of the traditional quest and the blasphemous vampire

do not exist but for their search for the origin of the creation:

God did not live in this church; these statues gave an image to nothingness. I was thesupernatural in this cathedral. I was the only supermortal thing that stood conscious under thisroof! Loneliness. Loneliness to the point of madness. [...] 'And now art thou cursed from theearth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thoutillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a vagabondshalt you be in the earth... and whoever slayeth thee, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold.'31

Louis's spiritual quest for truth about his existence ends in disillusion. The young

vampire stares at church statues which cannot be the expected incarnation of the Creator.

As they prove to be fake forms of the Grail, incapable of satisfying his spiritual thirst,

Louis questions the very existence of God, and romantically condemns himself to wander

like a modern branded Cain. As a result the very presence of the vampire on earth stands

for a constant blasphemy which remains unbearable for his usual victims. Thus the human

quest for the vampire also implies spiritual issues, as his final destruction protects an

established spiritual truth unanimously acknowledged by vampire hunters, which is the

divine prerogative of life, death, and creation:

Thus are we ministers of God's own wish: that the world, and men for whom His Son die,will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He have allowedus to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more.Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise; and like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause.32

Van Helsing's motives for the quest for Dracula somewhat remind one of the

motives for the old crusaders' quest which occurred in the twelfth century! Even though he

and his Victorian fellows do not look like knights in full armor any longer, their

involvement completely corresponds to that of the traditional heroes of romance. Indeed

31 Interview with the Vampire, pp.158-15932 Dracula, p.412

the spiritual issue of the vampiric quest appears clearly: the vampire questions the divine

supremacy over the Creation, therefore he must be eradicated. In this way the quest for the

vampire manifestly assumes the appearance of a spiritual crusade against a creature which

contests God. However one can ponder over the latent motives for a quest for an earthly

immortal being about which Reinfield revealingly says "he walked with God".33 Indeed

some statements sound like confessions:

He knew more than I did, -he was my all in this desesperate attempt. I dreaded him as ademon, yet I invoked him as a god.34

Immalee's statement quite explicitly reveals the latent motives for her quest for

Melmoth. Even though for a long time the young Indian girl has considered love as the

only aim of her desperate quest for the wanderer, a more spiritual concern shows beneath

her dying words. Indeed Immalee's quest aims at a hardly attainable and absolute form of

knowledge of which Melmoth seems to be the living incarnation. As this knowledge

apparently originates in the divine, the immortal villain substitutes himself for God in

Immalee's eyes, and the innocent woman's longing for Melmoth looks like a repressed

spiritual quest for an earthly form of divine answer. Melmoth's extended life is a tangible

anomaly which implies unbelievable spiritual promises:

Le vampire va offrir à ses proches une "non-vie-non-mort" éternelle en consolation d'unparadis perdu. Du moment où quelquechose fléchit dans l'ordre théologique, où l'Eglise n'estplus à même de tenir cette promesse d'une vie éternelle, une cruelle angoisse tourmente lescoeurs. Le vampire en est le symptôme, il vient à la place de la défaillance du divin.35

The vampiric character stands for the indirect expression of a repressed thirst for

heavenly life, so that he becomes a pathological earthly subsitute for the divine, strongly

though unconsciously associated with the image of God. Indeed as the vampire manifestly

embodies and offers the tangible promise of an eternal afterlife which is both feared and

expected, the human quest for his body indirectly betrays a spiritual quest for a

misrepresented avatar of Christ. Thus the quest for the vampire hides a frustrated desire to

catch the Eternal up, a spiritual completion which usual religious beliefs promise but fail to

33 Dracula, p.34634 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.19635 Jean-Claude AGUERRE in Dracula, Figures Mythiques, p.139

satisfy on earth. In a word, the vampire literally embodies the unbearable and attractive

opportunity to confront directly with the Creator.

Melmoth approached him with that frightful calmness that mocks the terror it excites. 'Myprophecy has been fulfilled; you rise to meet me rattling from your chains, and rustling fromyour straw -am I not a true prophet?' 36

In this excerpt Melmoth ironically turns the Holy Scripture to his own account:

indeed the immortal wanderer humorously pretends to be a genuine prophet. However,

contrary to biblical prophets, the only Messiah that Melmoth can announce is himself!

Even though his coming certainly does not correspond to the kind of spiritual encounter

that Stanton expects, the evil being explicitly asserts himself as the only divine incarnation

on earth which the English prisoner can hope to negotiate with. The vampiric character

purposely aims at substituting himself for a missing God from which neither justice nor

protection can be expected. Thus the vampire claims his status as the spiritual object of the

quest:

[...] je suis la beauté, je suis la jeunesse, je suis la vie; viens à moi, nous serons l'amour. Quepourrait t'offrir Jéhovah pour compensation? Notre existence coulera comme un rêve et ne sera qu'un baiser éternel.

Répands le vin de ce calice, et tu es libre. Je t'emmènerai vers les îles inconnues; tu dormiras sur mon sein, dans un lit d'or massif et sous un pavillon d'argent; car je t'aime et je veux te prendre à ton Dieu, devant qui tant de nobles coeurs répandent des flots d'amour qui n'arrivent pas jusqu'à lui.37

36 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.5437 La Morte Amoureuse, p.82

Clarimonde overtly compares herself with God in order to charm Romuald. Indeed

the female vampire suggests a blasphemous and somewhat attractive spiritual reward for

the young priest, which actually looks like heaven on earth. Thus Romuald's quest for

Clarimonde betrays an essential interest in an attainable kingdom of heaven, a spiritual

promise which the vampire merely offers to satisfy. Even though the vampire manifestly

stands for a divine substitution for afterlife, justice and bliss, the heroes of the quest for the

vampire can legitimately expect to discover more than those prospects. Indeed the quest for

the vampire also remains a quest for an omniscient and attainable form of demiurge, a

source of spiritual truth.

[...]my heart beat faster for the mountains of eastern Europe, finally, beat faster for the onehope that somewhere we might find in that primitive countryside the answer to why under Godthis suffering was allowed to exist- why under God it was allowed to begin, and how underGod it might be ended.38

Louis and Claudia's quest for the old vampire from eastern Europe clearly proves to

be a search for metaphysical answers. Indeed they strangely enough associate their

expected discovery of the ancient creature with a potential spiritual completion, as though

the old vampire could take the place of an omniscient though elusive incarnation of God.

In this way the vampire appears as the unholy receptacle of an enigmatic spiritual truth,

and he reminds one of a genuine Grail whose mystical content (blood) and divine manifest

origin (afterlife and eternity) are both supposed to conceal heavenly secrets. As a result the

quest for the vampire seems similar to that of traditional romances, as they both aim at

fathoming divine inscrutability.

Celui qui a pu émerger de la crypte souterraine des entrailles de la terre surgit du ventre dela mort-vive, d'une toute-puissance encerclante, "encercueillante". Il peut se faire l'arpenteurdes surfaces du globe, le savant utilisateur d'instruments scientifiques ou encore l'artisteinterprète des vibrations tant magiques qu'intelligibles des mots et des choses [...]. Oedipe ouMoïse, sortis vivants du coffre-cercueil d'exposition, se rapprochent d'un ordre divin, tout enrestant dans le monde des humains.39

Jesus Christ came out of the tomb three days after his martyrdom: his resurrection

was the sign of his divine nature. By perverting -in its primary sense- this event, the

38 Interview with the Vampire, p.18339 Le Vampirisme, p.232

vampire conjures up an approachable form of God in the collective unconscious: his tomb

shelters the avatar of a godhead, representing an invaluable spiritual treasure. Thus to be

confronted with the vampire in his coffin is like realizing to some extent the forbidden and

repressed desire to gaze at the dead incarnation of God. Indeed, as the vampire almost went

through divine ordeals and presents heavenly characteristics, vampire hunters may

unconsciously treat him as the equal of God, and consequently expect spiritual revelations.

However, the vampire does not satisfy the spiritual thirst of usual quests, as he does not

completely follow the canons of traditional romance.

3. Discrepancies between the quests

Le zèle de Sérapion avait quelquechose de dur et de sauvage qui le faisait ressembler à undémon plutôt qu'à un apôtre ou à un ange, et sa figure aux grands traits austères etprofondément découpés par le reflet de la lanterne n'avait rien de très rassurant.40

Even though one has to admit that the quests in vampire stories undeniably follow

the usual structure and themes of the traditional quests found in romance, it remains

obvious that vampiric quests include some specific components which characterize them.

For instance the excerpt above illustrates how vampire stories completely mix the

established roles of romance up. Indeed the reader expects Sérapion to embody the heroic

figure because of his Christian bias, but his physical appearance as well as his behaviour

finally remind one more of the devil's. Besides, as a vampire Clarimonde amazes the reader

more by her romantic qualities than by her misdeeds, and unexpectedly evokes more the

hero of the quest than the conventional evil foe. Not only this kind of puzzling instability

does appear in Gautier's short story, but in Stoker's masterpiece too:

Tout ce que le Christ est ou fait, Dracula l'invertit ou le pervertit. Le Christ est le bien;Dracula est le Mal- un agent du diable. Le Christ était un humble charpentier; Dracula, unaristocrate vaniteux. Le Christ offre la lumière, l'espoir, et ressuscita à l'aube; Dracula se lèveau coucher du soleil et se complaît dans la ténèbre. La mort du Christ sur un double pieuannonçait sa renaissance; pour le vampire, le pieu signifie la mort et l'oubli. Le Christ a offertsa propre vie pour que les autres puissent vivre; Dracula vole la vie des autres pour qu'il puissevivre, lui. Les fidèles boivent le sang du Christ lors de l'Eucharistie; Dracula inverse le procédéet boit celui de ses fidèles. Tous deux prêchent résurrection et immortalité, le premier offrant lapureté spirituelle, l'autre, l'excès physique.41

40 La Morte Amoureuse, p.11141 Clive LEATHERDALE in Dracula, Collection Figures Mythiques, p.85

"Vampire heroes" such as Dracula subtly pervert the superficial aspect of romance.

Even though vampire stories follow its thematical and structural patterns, an underlying

instability of the characterization disrupts the narrative. In vampire stories, the major quest

remains the human hunters (Victorian heroes)' quest for the vampire (evil foe). However

one cannot omit that the other hero's quest -which is that of the vampire hero for Victorian

foes- coexists with the main quest. Even though the constituent characteristics of that quest

manifestly fit in with that of the traditional quest too, one has to admit that because of that

coexistence, vampire stories finally follow a muddled form of dialectic structure. Thus

vampires such as Dracula and hunters such as Sérapion never confine themselves to such

fixed antagonistic roles, as they constantly hover between that of heroes and that of foes.

This indefinable and uncertain status of the protagonists remains a major aspect of fantastic

literature in general and consequently of vampiric quests. This feeling of uncertainty

extends up to the quested object:

'Another, who had an appearance of more intelligence than the rest, added the extraordinaryfact of the stranger's being seen in various and distant parts of the earth within a time in whichno power merely human could be supposed to traverse them- that his marked, and fearful habitwas every where to seek out the most wretched, or the most profligate, of the communityamong which he flung himself- what was his object in seeking them was unknown.' 42

The instability of the dialectic structure hunter-hunted in vampire stories raises a

real problem. Indeed as the protagonists' roles are hardly ever definitely settled, one can

legitimately wonder who quests what, and for what reason! In this perspective, Monçada's

statement about Melmoth is quite typical of the vampiric quest. Indeed it seems that

vampiric characters such as the Irish immortal wanderer are conspicuous by their urge to

travel from place to place. This almost obsessional need to stride over the earth without a

break remains inherent in traditional romances too: the hero usually wanders from land to

land, and never gives up his quest. However there exists a clear discrepancy between the

two motives for the quest, as contrary to the usual hero's ones, Melmoth's seem quite

undefined. This abstruseness can easily be found in other vampire stories:

'I kill humans every night. I seduce them, draw them close to me, with an insatiable hunger,a constant never-ending search for something... something, I don't know what it is....43

42 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.32643 Interview with the Vampire, p.137

Louis clearly asserts that his predatory activity actually is a genuine quest. Indeed

as already seen before, the story of his search for the others takes on the structural and

thematical characteristics of romance. However the grounds for his quest seem to elude his

own understanding. Thus contrary to the traditional quest, the vampire's quest is

characterized by the latter's mere incapacity to give a reason or a justification for that very

quest. As the vampire remains an in-between creature which constantly wavers between

the position of the hunter and that of the hunted, his role -and in this way that of the other

protagonists- never settles so that his motive for the quest is a mystery even for himself.

This latent uncertainty insidiously leads the vampire to question the very object of his own

quest:

But oh, how the quest for the Old World vampires filled me with bitterness in thosemoments, a bitterness I could all but taste, as if the very air had lost its freshness. For whatsecrets, what truths had those monstrous creatures of night to give us?44

Louis's relationship with the physical object of his quest seems really paradoxical:

the young vampire questions himself about his own interest in pursuing a creature which is

but an older reflection of himself. Indeed contrary to the traditional heroes of romance,

Louis involves himself in a stubborn search for an object whose both appearance and

function elude his understanding... As a result Louis's quest eventually looks like a

pointless quest. Indeed as if being unable to choose between the roles of the hunter and of

the hunted were not enough (Louis is both a vampire and a vampire hunter), both his

motives for the quest and his quested object lead him to confusion. In a word, Louis hardly

knows where his character stands in the quest, what his reasons for it are, and what makes

up the object of his quest. This questioning about the "quested" does not exclusively

concern vampires:

Et puis je me disais: 'Est-ce bien Clarimonde? quelle preuve en ai-je? [...] Je me rapprochaidu lit, et je regardai avec un redoublement d'attention l'objet de mon incertitude.45

Romuald's questions as a hunter are quite typical of the quest motif in vampire

stories. As the young priest does not really know if he permanently embodies the hunted or

the hunter, and as the reasons for his interest in Clarimonde remain vague, his physical

44 Interview with the Vampire, p.18145 La Morte Amoureuse, p.94

quest for the female vampire goes hand in hand with a questioning about her body. Indeed

the bloodthirsty woman becomes an object of sheer uncertainty which finally defines her

up to the level of speech. Thus in the excerpt above, for instance, Romuald's questioning

about Clarimonde literally provides the female vampire with a physical existence: the

young priest's questioning sets up Clarimonde as the "object" of his quest. This defining

power of the quest appears as a characteristic of vampire stories:

It was at this moment that, in a seat opposite to him, he discovered the object of his searchfor four years, -the Englishman whom he had met in the plains of Valentia, and whom hebelieved the same with the subject of the extraordinary narrative he had heard there.46

Once more Stanton's words literally define the vampiric character as the object of

the quest. Indeed a revealing substitution occurs in the pursuer's mouth when talking about

Melmoth: he only refers to the evil wanderer as "the object of his search" and refuses to

call him by his real name. Melmoth seems deprived of his identity and ends up being only

defined by Stanton's quest: the immortal villain does not exist by himself, and has no

meaning but thanks to the circumlocutory definitions of his hunter. Thus the vampiric quest

stands out from the traditional quest of romance because of a discrepancy between the

quested objects which in the case of vampire stories only find a definition through the

quest itself. In a word, the Grail for instance remains the Grail, whereas Melmoth does not

remain Melmoth but simply turns into the "object" of the search. However the defining

power of the quest has a strong influence on the questioner too:

I have sought him every where. -The desire of meeting him once more, is become as aburning fire within me, -it is the necessary condition of my existence.47

Even though Stanton's determination to confront with Melmoth obviously echoes

the traditional hero's stubbornness to complete his quest, one can wonder what makes the

specificity of the vampiric one in the excerpt above. Indeed Stanton's resolution betrays an

essential issue: the Englishman defines himself thanks to the quest within which he moves.

Even though this seems no wonder for a hunter who hardly knows who finally hunts what,

Stanton identifies himself with the object of his own search. Thus the main characters in

46 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.4347 Ibid., p.59

vampire stories hide behind the quest motif which indirectly defines them and manifestly

stages them as in a dream:

He instantly began to climb the rock, -the figure was but a few feet above him, -the objectof his daily and nightly dreams was at last within the reach of his arm, -was almost tangible.[...] he was now almost foot to foot, and face to face, with the object of his pursuit, when,grasping at the loosened fragment of a stone [...] his hold failed -he fell backwards [...] hefound himself in bed, the old governante beside him, and uttered faintly, 'What a horrid dream!'then sinking back as he felt his exhaustion, 'and how weak it has left me!' 48

In this passage, the dreamlike value of young John Melmoth's quest appears quite

clearly: the evil wanderer is hardly mentioned. These indirect representations of Melmoth

("the object of his daily and nightly dreams" and "the object of his pursuit") deny his name

and set him up as a component of a quest which simply defines him. In almost the same

way, John Melmoth defines himself according to the quest too, as he stands aside in favour

of the action: indeed the quest pushes its main character into the background. Thus the

main protagonists of vampire stories conceal themselves behind a dreamlike vampiric

quest which works as a disguise for their main repressed concerns, that is to say

themselves. Consequently it is no wonder that in vampire stories ambivalent characters can

hardly define themselves:

Il se produit, en outre, dans les rêves, des inversions de situations, de rapports entre deuxpersonnes, comme si tout se passait dans un 'monde renversé'. Dans le rêve, c'est le lièvre quifait souvent la chasse au chasseur.49

When reading this excerpt, one cannot help thinking about the hunter-hunted

relationship inherent in any vampire story. Indeed as already mentioned before, the

vampiric quest is conspicuous by the instability of that relationship: vampires and human

beings in turn hover between one role and the other. Such an unstable aspect does not exist

in the typical quest of romance in which the duties are definitively allocated and

irremediably fixed. As a result one can consider the vampiric quest as a subtle variation on

the genre of the traditional quest: this variation seems to take root in the unconscious and

to express itself in the strange inverted world of dreams:

48 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.6649 Introduction à la Psychanalyse, p.164

We could distinguish clearly the individuals of each party, the pursued and the pursuers.Strangely enough, the pursued did not seem to realize, or at least to care, that they werepursued [...].50

This excerpt perfectly echoes that which precedes it, and quite well concludes the

comparison between the traditional quest and the vampiric quest. It shows that even though

vampire stories apparently follow the usual pattern of romance as far as the dialectic

structure of the quest is concerned, a discrepancy exists between the two literary forms of

narrative. This difference fundamentally deals with an unsteady casting, which originates

in a dreamlike supremacy of the quest over its protagonists. In a word, one can assert that

the main difference which exists between the vampiric quest and the typical quest of

romance is that the characters of romance betray an interest in the quest, whereas in

vampire stories the quest betrays an interest in the characters. Indeed the action of the quest

looks like a backdrop which is just a pretext for exploring its "actors". In this way it does

not take much to associate the usual quest motif with an intellectual questioning about its

protagonists.

B. PHYSICAL MOVEMENT AND INTELLECTUAL INTERROGATION

1. Travelling as a mental form of exploration

[...] 'you gaze on me, but your expression is so changed, that I dare not speak to you- we flyover the seas in a moment, but you are for ever at the helm, though you never land- themoment the paradise isle appears, you disappear; and as we return, the ocean is all dark, andour course is as dark and swift as the storm that sweeps them- you look at me, but never speak-Oh yes! you are with me every night!' 'But Immalee, these are all dreams- idle dreams. I rowyou over the Indian seas from Spain! -this is all a vision of your imagination.' -'Is it a dreamthat I see you now?' said Isidora -'is it a dream that I talk with you? -Tell me, for my senses arebewildered; and it appears to me no less strange, that you should be here in Spain, than that Ishould be in my native island. Alas! in the life that I now lead, dreams have become realities,and realities seem only like dreams. How is it you are here, if indeed you are here? -how is itthat you have wandered so far? How many oceans you must have crossed, how many isles youmust have seen, and none like that where I first beheld you! But is it you indeed I behold? Ithought I saw you last night, but I had rather trust even my dreams than my senses. I believedyou only a visitor of that isle of visions, and a haunter of the visions that recall it [...]'.51

This excerpt quite well demonstrates how physical movement in vampire stories

constantly remains questionable, as it seems to originate more in the imagination and

50 Dracula, p.48151 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.345

dreams than in reality. Even though Immalee's travels to her Indian isle apparently include

every constituent elements of the perilous jouneys inherent in traditional quest, Melmoth

points out that he actually is the character which conjures up these imaginary movements

in her mind: "I row you over the Indian seas from Spain!". As a result the immortal

wanderer stands for the real focus which triggers a mental voyage for Immalee. Thus in

vampiric quests travelling literally works as a metaphor for an exploration whose main

concern remains the vampiric character, and whose sole field seems to be the mind.

Ces trois jours ne comptent pas dans ma vie, et je ne sais où mon esprit était allé pendanttout ce temps; je n'en ai gardé aucun souvenir. [...] personne ne connaissait dans les environs unchâteau auquel s'appliquât la description du château où j'avais retrouvé Clarimonde.52

Romuald's successive travels with Clarimonde do not seem to be anchored in

reality, but in the priest's imagination. Even though his first perilous journey to the female

vampire's castle apparently looks like the preliminary adventure of a genuine quest, his

doubt about the tangibility of his next movements disrupts the credibility of the quest.

Indeed the only entity which is explicitly involved in the quest remains Romuald's mind.

Once more, what first takes the appearance of a physical tour of Europe with a vampire

actually turns out to be but an imaginary trip. This metaphorical travel appears to be

inherent in vampire stories and can be found in one of the best known masterpieces of the

genre too:

That terrible baptism of blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit[...].53

Van Helsing's comment about Dracula's bite betrays how the Victorian characters'

quest for the vampire across Europe actually goes hand in hand with a mental form of

travel. Indeed Mina's imaginary movement seems to hide behind the manifest physical

movement of her fellows. However the young lady's precious information about the

immortal villain eventually asserts the predominant status of this imaginary exploration in

the narrative. The mind definitely proves to be the privileged field for travel in vampire

stories, as mental voyages invariably accompany and even sometimes anticipate real ones:

52 La Morte Amoureuse, p.9753 Dracula, p.441

She would plan our trip, not with the need of any pen or paper, only in her mind. A trip thatwould take us at once away from the glittering capitals of Europe towards the Black Sea, wherewe could dock at Varna and begin that search in the rural countryside of the Carpathians.54

Claudia mentally travels in Europe before actually being able to do it physically.

The young female vampire's movement only occurs in her imagination first, a fact which

betrays the real nature of this vampiric quest. Indeed Claudia's and Louis's perilous journey

conceals a questioning about their origins, an intellectual dimension which prevails over

the mere geographical one. As a result the vampiric quest proves to be a mental

exploration, just as the object of the quest seems to be an answer, an intellectual aim which

is to be found in the mind rather than in space. Consequently one can legitimately wonder

about the point of travelling when mental voyages may be sufficient:

'But why need we seek him further, when he is gone away from us? 55

Mina's innocent question to Van Helsing actually points out an essential issue of the

vampiric quest. Indeed the young Victorian lady openly questions her fellows' grounds for

their traditional way of leading the quest. Even though romance typically includes this kind

of perilous journey in its structure, Mina indirectly asserts her belief that the physical hunt

for Dracula fails to follow this pattern and consequently seems pointless in this case. Thus

she reminds one that the search for the vampire intrinsically requires much more reflection

than physical movements, and stresses that an intellectual form of exploration prevails over

a physical one within vampiric quests in general. The vampire's quest for his victims seems

to justify itself in almost the same way:

On voit mal pourquoi, par exemple, le comte a pris le risque d'un tel voyage en Angleterre,alors qu'il pouvait tranquillement exercer ses méfaits dans son propre pays.56

Indeed one cannot easily find an explanation for Dracula's precise choice of Lucy

and Mina as his privileged victims: such a decision obviously leads the vampire to a

dangerous geographical movement which apparently has no justification. One can only

ponder over the reasons for the vampire's voyage across the oceans, and conjecture that

this manifest travel actually hides another kind of voyage which can be but an intellectual

54 Interview with the Vampire, p.18055 Dracula, p.40456 Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, p.133

quest. Thus the Count sails to England for personal motives which are questions the

answers of which fail to be found among people from his own country. Consequently the

traditional quest motif conceals a latent questioning in vampire stories:

Curiosity, or something that perhaps deserves a better name, the wild and awful pursuit ofan indefinite object, had taken strong hold of his mind.57

Stanton's quest for Melmoth apparently originates from his "curiosity", a

disposition which usually goes hand in hand with questioning. Indeed the Englishman's

exploration of Europe actually betrays an intellectual type of movement which occurs in

his "mind". His "pursuit" of Melmoth does not really aim at the evil wanderer himself, but

at some knowledge about him. Indeed Stanton secretly wonders about the immortal villain,

described as "an indefinite object" which he desperately tries to define. Melmoth's

preternatural existence logically triggers both a quest and a questioning, and his pursuer's

manifest physical activity only conceals a mental one. This dual aspect of the quest seems

to be a characteristic of vampire stories:

He was now as much a lover of solitude and silence as Lord Ruthven; but much as hewished for solitude, his mind could not find it in the neighbourhood of Athens; if he sought itamidst the ruins he had formerly frequented, Ianthe's form stood by his side- if he sought it inthe woods, her light step would appear wandering amidst the underwood, in quest of themodest violet; then suddenly turning round would show, to his wild imagination, her pale faceand wounded throat with a meek smile upon her lips. [...] They travelled in every direction, andsought every spot to which a recollection could be attached; but though they thus hastenedfrom place to place yet they seemed not to heed what they gazed upon.58

Aubrey's successive travels remain intimately linked with his mental search for

alleviation. However his geographical movements cannot fulfill his expectations, as they

only express his own introspection. Even though for the reader the two aspects of his quest

almost imperceptibly merge into one, his spatial search is but a pretext for a more essential

mental search. Thus Aubrey's manifest mobility pathologically betrays his latent desire for

finding an answer to metaphysical questions about his lover's death. Accordingly the

vampiric quest in vampire stories finally turns out to be closer to a questioning than to a

traditional quest, as the following excerpt seems to corroborate:

57 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.2158 The Vampyre, pp.13-14

This to Jonathan Harker.You are to stay with your dear Madam Mina. We shall go to make our search- if I can call it

so, for it is not search but knowing, and we seek confirmation only.59

Van Helsing's words definitely sound like a confession: the old doctor openly

asserts that the crusade in which he and his companions get involved actually is a mental

crusade. Even though the Victorian heroes apparently leave for a traditional quest for the

vampiric foe, their perilous journey towards Eastern Europe stands for the manifest

expression of an intellectual voyage which is only a questioning. Indeed Van Helsing

points out that their quest aims at "knowing", which means that it aims at finding answers

to questions. Thus their substantial geographical travel only conceals an intellectual

agitation, a questioning which deals with secrets of which the vampire is supposed to be

the receptacle:

It seemed at moments, when I sat alone in the dark stateroom, that the sky had come downto meet the sea and that some great secret was to be revealed in that meeting, some great gulfmiraculously closed forever. But who was to make this revelation when the sky and seabecame indistinguishable and neither any longer was chaos? God? Or Satan? It struck mesuddenly what consolation it would be to know Satan, to look upon his face, no matter howterrible that countenance was, to know that I belonged to him totally, and thus put to restforever the torment of this ignorance. To step through some veil that would forever separate mefrom all that I called human nature.

I felt the ship moving closer and closer to this secret.60

Louis's quest is triggered by a metaphysical "ignorance" which he hopes to fill

thanks to a confrontation with the old vampires from Eastern Europe. Consequently it is no

wonder to read that his ship does not physically move to a place, but literally sails to a

"secret". Once more travelling works as a substitute for thinking and for a questioning the

main objective of which remains answers. Those answers are supposed to be found thanks

to the encounter with the vampire which metaphorically expresses himself in the excerpt

through biblical allusions. Indeed Louis only gets involved in a physical quest for the

vampire because he expects this may lead him to a "revelation" about his origin: in a word

Louis considers the vampiric body as a potential answer to his questioning.

2. Probing bodies

59 Dracula, p.40560 Interview with the Vampire, p.177

Vampire stories are characterized by many scenes of metaphorical penetration.

Indeed vampiric quests often end with the insertion of a phallic object into bodies:

vampires' teeth for instance usually pierce human skins, and vampire hunters conclude

their quest with the ritual driving of a wooden stake into the vampire's heart. Obviously

one has lost count of the sexual interpretations of these scenes, but when considering the

questioning aspect of vampiric quests, one can imagine a new assumption about these

images of penetration. Even though stakes and teeth remain the privileged ways of probing

bodies, one can notice other ones in the narratives which perfectly echo the intellectual

concerns of the quest:

I realized that Claudia knelt on his chest, that she was probing the mass of hair and bonethat had been his head. She was scattering the fragments of his skull. We had met the Europeanvampire, the creature of the Old World. He was dead.61

Claudia's quite repulsive way of inspecting the dead vampire betrays her real intent.

Indeed the vampire girl desperately tries to grasp with her fingers the actual object of the

quest which is not the vampire himself but something hidden in his brain. As an outcome a

physical penetration of the vampire body pathologically expresses the urge to find an

intellectual element. Since the mind seems to be the centre of this mental issue, one can but

wonder about the real meaning of the act of probing. Indeed it seems that "probing" must

be taken both in a literal and in a figurative sense. The vampire indirectly aims at

investigating the soul through a manifest penetration of the body, as human beings seem to

guess in this excerpt:

Those who felt this sensation of awe, could not explain whence it arose: some attributed itto the dead grey eye, which, fixing upon the object's face, did not seem to penetrate, and at oneglance to pierce through to the inward workings of the heart; but fell upon the cheek with aleaden ray that weighed upon the skin it could not pass.62

Even though Lord Ruthven's way of probing is here far more subtle than a mere

bite, his actual purpose remains similar to that of usual vampires. Indeed at the beginning

of the narrative, the evil nobleman prefers eyes to teeth in order to "pierce through to the

inward workings of the heart". However the reader has to notice that the vampire does not

hesitate to resort to bloodier conventional ways of penetrating people afterwards.

61 Interview with the Vampire, p.20762 The Vampyre, p.3

Nonetheless the preliminary attempts at probing human beings mentioned above tell one a

lot about the vampire's purpose: Lord Ruthven shows no interest in his victims' body to

which he hardly pays attention, but covets the secrets of their souls. Thus probing bodies in

vampire stories clearly gives priority to inward concerns over outward ones, as the

following excerpt seems to suggest too:

Quels yeux! avec un éclair ils décidaient de la destinée d'un homme; ils avaient une vie, unelimpidité, une ardeur, une humidité brillante que je n'ai jamais vues à un oeil humain; il s'enéchappait des rayons pareils à des flèches et que je voyais distinctement aboutir à mon coeur.63

Clarimonde's way of penetrating Romuald's intimacy looks more like an intellectual

illegal entry than a mere bodily one. Even though the dampness that is evoked in this scene

quite obviously conjures up sexual images, metaphorical arrows piercing the young man's

body reminds one of the Christian martyrdom. As an upshot the female vampire's way of

probing Aubrey's body takes on a spiritual value, as it comes closer to metaphysical

concerns than physical ones. Indeed in vampire stories it seems that the overt act of

inserting literally goes hand in hand with the hidden intent to go beyond human beings'

surface, in order to attain the most secret parts of man:

There was but one touch to be added to the picture of her beauty, and that touch was givenby no physical grace, -no exterior charm. It was borrowed from a feeling as pure as it wasintense, -as unconscious as it was profound. The secret fire that lit her eyes with that lambentglory, while it caused the paleness of her young cheek, -that preyed on her heart, while itseemed to her imagination that she clasped a young cherub in her arms, like the unfortunatequeen of Virgil, -that fire was a secret even to herself, -She knew she felt, but knew not whatshe felt.64

In this excerpt what Melmoth covets in Immalee appears clearly. Indeed the

vampiric character's obvious verbal attempts at penetrating the young Indian woman's

innocence do not aim so much at satisfying carnal desires as at satisfying mental ones.

Even though the evil wanderer does not deny the fine forms of his prey, his real interest

goes beyond any aesthetic aspect and focuses on inner concerns. The genuine issue hidden

in the body of the innocent victim explicitly remains an allegorical "fire" both

"unconscious" and "profound": these indirect expressions betray the psychoanalytic

dimension and the metaphysical significance of the expected content, which might simply

63 La Morte Amoureuse, p.8064 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.458

be love. So the vampiric logic confers on bodies a concealing power of inner secrets, as if

they only were the receptacles of essential mysteries to which vampires desperately

aspire... Thus killing by sucking blood works as a brutal inspection of the flesh, in order to

uncover the mind:

'Killing is no ordinary act,' said the vampire. 'One doesn't simply glut oneself on blood.' Heshook his head. 'It is the experience of another life for certain, and often the experience of theloss of that life through the blood, slowly. It is again and again the experience of that loss ofmy own life, which I experienced when I sucked the blood from Lestat's wrist and felt his heartpound with my heart. It is again and again a celebration of that experience; because forvampires that is the ultimate experience.65

Louis's vision of killing remains close to the most ancient tribal beliefs: indeed

plunging his teeth into his victims' flesh appears as a mystical act which quenches more

than a physical thirst. Consequently the almost obsessional recurrence of the word

"experience" points out the fact that vampirism is but an indirect form of cannibalism

which aims at appropriating the prey's knowledge about life. As a result the insertion of

teeth or stakes into bodies aims at satisfying less a biological hunger than an intellectual

one: it ends up being a perverted form of bodily probing the latent origin of which actually

deals with intellectual concerns and existential questions.

3. The "quested" questioned

From what one has already read, one can conclude that the vampiric quest is

characterized by the adventurous and obsessional pursuit of the other, a creature which can

either be a vampire or a human being. Therefore vampire stories look more or less like

traditional romances the manifest purpose of which remains the physical approach of a

tangible object. However it seems that vampire stories are distinguished by a peculiarity as

for the living object of the quest: indeed it appears that the geographical closeness of the

"quested" is paradoxically not an element determining enough to conclude the quest. Even

though the discovery of the coveted creature usually puts an end to the hunt, a new form of

quest starts then, as one can notice in the following excerpt:

65 Interview with the Vampire, p.33

[...] I found that she exercised with respect to herself, her mother, her history, everything infact connected with her life, plans, and people, an ever wakeful reserve. [...] What harm couldit do anyone to tell me what I so ardently desired to know?66

Laura's questions about Carmilla start with her confrontation with the female

vampire. Indeed the young lady's physical encounter with the evil woman fails to satisfy

her, and even triggers a fundamental questioning about her origins. Even though the

vampire's body -defined as the "quested"- is expected to be the receptacle of answers for its

hunter, a real approach does not bring any revelation at all. Laura finds herself in a state of

intellectual frustration, and openly wonders why she could not ask Carmilla what she

"ardently desired to know?". As a result the living object of the quest is submitted to a

frantic interrogation which justifies and finalizes any former geographical movement and

bodily probing inherent in vampire stories:

'Did you do it to me?' And how?' she asked, her eyes narrowing. 'How did you do it?''And why should I tell you? It's my power.''Why yours alone?' she asked, her voice icy, her eyes heartless. 'How was it done?' she

demanded suddenly in rage.67

Claudia's frenetic existential questions to Lestat deal with essential concerns, which

remain the vampire girl's only motives for the vampiric quest. Their obsessional recurrence

all along the narrative actually is the expression of the young female predator's wish to find

an answer within the "quested" creature which, here, stands for the avatar of the divine.

Indeed Claudia openly questions the vampire Lestat as an original creator or as an oracle

whose knowledge about the whys and wherefores of earthly life comes close to the infinite.

However questioning the "quested" in vampire stories apparently does not satisfy the

searcher's expectations which come up against a deliberate dumbness from the object of

the quest:

'Ask what you please, and I will tell you everything. But my story is simply one ofbewilderment and darkness. I know absolutely nothing. Put any question you please.68

Carmilla's words to Laura express quite well the paradox on which the vampiric

quest is based. Even though the search for the vampire exists but in order to offer the

opportunity to ask him essential questions, the final confrontation with him ends in the

66 Carmilla, p.26267 Interview with the Vampire, p.12168 Carmilla, p.286

acknowledgement of a -fake?- ignorance. Indeed the female vampire's relative dumbness

sounds like a hardly believable confession: "I know absolutely nothing. Put any question

you please". Thus the interrogation of the "quested" actually raises the issue of its own

reliability as the object of the quest: indeed the pursuer's questions reveal the pursued's

incapacity to play its role. The following excerpt shows that this situation may lead to

problematic issues:

'But Louis...' Lestat was saying softly. 'How can you be as you are, how can you stand it?'He was looking up at me, his mouth in that same grimace, his face wet with tears. 'Tell me,Louis, help me to understand!' How can you understand it all, how can you endure?'69

An essential change occurs in the relationship between the two vampires at this

stage of the narrative. Indeed Louis unexpectedly moves from the status of the questioner

to that of the questioned, because of the originally quested (!) character's interrogation. A

confusing reversal of roles takes hold of the vampiric quest: Lestat's existential questions

remind one of Louis's, and the latter's impassiveness merely echoes the cynical vampire's

first dumbness. As only lengthy pauses and new interrogations stand for answers to the

different protagonists' questions, their roles as well as the very essence of the vampiric

quest end up becoming questionable:

[...] he approached it, and discovered the very object of his search, -the man whom he hadseen for a moment in Valentia, and after a search of four years, recognised at the theatre. *

* * * * * ** * * *

'You were in quest of me?' -'I was.' 'Have you any thing to inquire of me?' -'Much.' 'Speak,then.' -'This is no place.' 'No place! Poor wretch, I am independent of time and place. Speak, ifyou have something to learn?' -'I have many things to ask, but nothing to learn, I hope, fromyou.' 'You deceive yourself, but you will be undeceived when next we meet.'70

The end of Stanton's quest thanks to his confrontation with Melmoth unexpectedly

goes hand in hand with a questioning from the evil object of his quest. Indeed the immortal

wanderer openly questions his pursuer about the motives for his search, who finds himself

simply incapable of giving an answer. Thus the vampiric quest is based on this paradox: "I

have many things to ask, but nothing to learn [...]". Stanton's quest for Melmoth aims at

asking Melmoth questions which he strangely fails to utter when confronted with the

legendary villain character. This manifest dumbness from the Englishman's part somewhat69 Interview with the Vampire, p.35670 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.44

betrays his latent doubt about Melmoth's potential capacity to offer an answer, or his

scepticism about the mere existence of an answer, and in this way it questions in a larger

sense the significance of the vampiric quest.

Comme les humains aussi, les vampires modernes sont en quête de leur créateur, à larecherche de leurs origines, d'un secret [...].71

Even though the vampiric quest manifestly displays the appearances of a romance

and the characteristics of a traditional quest, one cannot help noticing subtle differences as

far as the object of the quest is concerned. Indeed it seems that the vampiric quest is

distinguished by the important instability which exists in the casting: the role of the

"quested" one in vampire stories remains problematical since it is never definitively fixed.

As a result the narrative deals more with the issues raised by the characters involved in the

quest than with the issues raised by the quest itself. In a word action is kept in the

background in favour of the protagonists, and stands for an excuse for an intellectual

questioning about personal concerns:

L'homme confronté à la perspective de sa propre mort se pose éternellement à son sujet desquestions qui ne recevront jamais de réponses: comment peut-on passer de la vie au néant?Qu'y a-t-il lorsque l'on a franchi le seuil? [...] Le personnage du vampire mort-vivant constituedans l'imaginaire une réponse à la terrifiante question de la mort vécue, car il est allé "de l'autrecôté" et il est donc susceptible d'apporter son propre témoignage.72

The obsessional act of questing proves to be the indirect expression of a latent

questioning which remains the essential issue for vampire stories' characters. This

questioning deals with the paramount concerns of humanity, which are usual existential

anxieties about the meaning of life, the pangs of death and the hypothetical existence of an

afterlife. Accordingly the vampiric quest substitutes itself for an unconfessed thirst for

knowledge too: it stands for the manifest outlet which indirectly satisfies a repressed desire

to ask metaphysical taboo questions. Thus the psychoanalytic dimension of the vampiric

quest becomes apparent:

Dans une perspective freudienne, on pourrait dire alors que le thème du vampire dans lalittérature anglo-saxonne représente une mise en surface, un retour du refoulé.73

71 Jean-Pierre PICOT in Les Vampires, Colloque de Cerisy-La-Salle, p.14972 Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, p.57473 Ibid., p.812

The vampire character openly represents and, to some extent, concentrates the

frustration about an expected though unattainable universal answer: consequently both the

interrogation and the quest for the vampire story creatures turn out to be mere ritual

psychological displacements which aim at circumventing the unbearable reality. As a result

as the vampiric quest only betrays an irrational attachment to imaginary representations,

there is no doubt about its pathological nature, which can but lead to fanciful endings.

III. DECEPTIVE AND DISAPPOINTING ASPECTS OF THE VAMPIRIC QUEST

One has already seen how the characters' quite obsessional and recurring urge to get

involved in the quest betrays the latter's pathological aspect in vampire stories. Besides the

vampiric quest distinguishes itself by the search for an elusive and hypothetical answer the

sheer existence of which is not proved, and the very accessibility of which even remains

implicitly questioned. So the vampiric quest seems to be a caricature of a traditional quest

and stands for an outlet characterized by rituals which are akin to mental lunacy, and which

end up discrediting its relevance. As a result one can wonder about the issues of this

unrealistic quest which, logically enough, shall end in a failure, as its outcome appears to

be inexorably unattainable.

A. ON PATHOLOGICAL RITUALS IN THE QUEST

1. Conventional vampiric huntings of men

I had indulged in one of the greatest pleasures of a vampire, that of watching peopleunbeknownst to them.1

Any vampire story invariably includes in its narrative one or several preliminary

hunts for human preys performed by the bloodthirsty creature. Even though the favourite

victims' profile somewhat changes according to the story (either male or female, either

ecclesiastic or aristocrat) there seems to exist a constant factor in the formal way of leading

these pursuits. Indeed the vampire figure apparently keeps to a strict protocol of search,

stalking and harassement which looks like a distinguishing mark. Thus these conventions,

which become a rule governing the quest, characterize the vampiric character as a kind of

criminal following the pattern of a serious psychosis:

Everything had been carefully thought out, and done systematically and with precision. Heseemed to have been prepared for every obstacle which be placed by accident in the way of his

1 Interview with the Vampire, p.48

intentions being carried out. To use an Americanism, he had 'taken no chances', and theabsolute accuracy with which his instructions were fulfilled, was simply the logical result ofhis care.2

Dracula's psychotic nature does not seem questionable, since the extreme gravity of

his behaviour proves to be more than a minor psychological disorder. However the vampire

actually is an obsessional neurotic, as he often seems definitely aware of his peculiar

condition and keeps the sense of reality. Indeed the evil count's nocturnal misdeeds

(harassement, bite, gradually intensified blood-lettings) which precede the final killing are

planned with a quite meticulous and irrational care. Besides, from the beginning to the end,

Dracula's journey manifestly follows a plan drawn by his own tormented mind to the letter.

Thus the immortal creature's bloody quest betrays a pathological aspect which naturally

conjures up that of the most famous criminal figures' murders:

The Count is a criminal and of a criminal type. Nordau and Lombroso would so classifyhim, and qua criminal he is of imperfectly formed mind. Thus, in a difficulty he has to seekresource in habit. His past is a clue, and the one page of it that we know- and that from his ownlips - tells that once before, when in what Morris would call a 'tight place', he went back to hisown country from the land he had tried to invade[...]. So he came to London to invade a newland. He was beaten, and when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he fledback over the sea to his home; just as formerly he had fled back over the Danube from Turkeyland.3

Van Helsing shows how the Count's quest turns out to look like already well-known

criminal ways of behaving. Indeed the Dutch scientist explains that, as a mere insane

murderer, the vampire "is of imperfectly formed mind". In this way he points out the

pathological character of his reasoning which originates neither in rationality nor in

intuition, but follows an unconscious pre-established "habit" triggered by a former trauma.

Thus Dracula's way of leading the quest somewhat indirectly expresses a painful repressed

memory of frustrated desire and betrays his mental derangement. This latent vampiric

frustration is satisfied thanks to a manifest outlet: the creation of a personal rule about the

hunt for human preys, the strict observance of the different stages of this ritualized rule and

the self obligation not to waive this irrational principle.

2 Dracula, p.2913 Ibid., p.439

Being a vampire for him meant revenge. Revenge against life itself. Every time he took alife it was revenge. It was no wonder, then, that he appreciated nothing. The nuances ofvampire existence weren't even available to him because he was focused with a maniacalvengeance upon the mortal life he'd left. Consumed with hatred, he looked back. Consumedwith envy, nothing pleased him unless he could take it from others; and once having it, he grewcold and dissatisfied, not loving the thing for itself; and so he went after something else.Vengeance, blind and sterile and contemptible.4

Lestat's case appears as a clear example of the pathological nature of the vampire's

quest. Indeed Louis openly explains that his mentor's way of behaving as well as his

misdeeds indirectly stand for something else: "Being a vampire for him meant revenge".

Accordingly the young vampire shows how Lestat's manifest bloody hunt for victims is not

an end in itself, but actually expresses a latent "envy". Indeed the libertine vampire's urge

for life is frustrated as it remains eternally unattainable. Thus the plethora of killings

perpetrated by Lestat only works as a roundabout satisfaction of his unconscious and

obsessionnal desire for literally tasting life... This "maniacal vengeance" obviously betrays

the underlying mental disorder of which the vampiric quest only remains the visible

symptom. As complex pathological outlets, vampiric huntings inexorably lead to

misunderstanding, further traumas and no less undesirable endings.

2.Formal ceremonial killings of vampires

Pour vous débarrasser de cette obsession, il n'y a qu'un moyen, et, quoiqu'il soit extrême, ille faut employer: aux grands maux les grands remèdes. Je sais où Clarimonde a été enterrée; ilfaut que nous la déterrions et que vous voyiez dans quel état pitoyable est l'objet de votreamour [...].5

In this excerpt Sérapion the priest introduces a well-known and expected ending in

any vampire story. Indeed it shows a recurring and established way of concluding the

pursuit by a very conventional killing of the vampire character. Even though the narrative

of the hunt somewhat changes according to the geographical context, the traditional

ceremonial of vampiric destruction remains almost invariable. These permanent features in

the ending often include: first the solemn opening of the vampire's coffin and his exposure

to the air as well as to the hunters' eyes, and secondly the destruction in itself, the protocol

of which varies, although it remains limited to an established range of methods:

4 Interview with the Vampire, p.515 La Morte Amoureuse, p.110

[...] il aspergea d'eau bénite le corps et le cercueil sur lequel il traça la forme d'une croixavec son goupillon. La pauvre Clarimonde n'eut pas été plutôt touchée par la sainte rosée queson beau corps tomba en poussière; ce ne fut plus qu'un mélange affreusement informe decendres et d'os à demi calcinés.6

Clarimonde's killing follows two major characteristics of the endings of vampire

stories. Indeed the female vampire's body is first destroyed thanks to drops of holy water

the contact of which also completely reduces it to dust. Beyond the usual interpretations

about the supposed power of sanctified objects on the vampire and its expected influence

on the accelerated decay of the vampire's body, one can ponder over the systematic resort

to this technique of killing. Indeed many hunters openly extol the qualities of holy water

against vampires, which ends up being a kind of privileged way of killing them in the

collective subconscious. Thus the obsessional choice of this peculiar weapon to some

extent ritualizes the quest almost up to the level of mental pathology. However another

deadly alternative exists as far as the protocol of vampiric destruction is concerned:

The next day the formal proceedings took place in the Chapel of Karnstein. The grave ofthe Countess Mircalla was opened; and the General and my father recognized each hisperfidious and beautiful guest, in the face now disclosed to view.[...] The body, therefore, inaccordance with the ancient practice, was raised, and a sharp stake driven through the heart ofthe vampire [...]. Then the head was struck off, and a torrent of blood flowed from the severedneck.7

The driving of a stake through Carmilla's heart before the final and fatal beheading

looks like well known clichés about the killing of vampires. However one has to

acknowledge that the elaboration of this destruction reminds one of a religious ritual too.

Indeed the participants openly show solemnity and accuracy throughout the ceremony,

which seems strangely planned and structured: the "formal proceedings" include

successive stages: exhumation, impalement, decapitation and bloodshed. This conventional

way of killing the vampire strongly conjures up the idea of a fanatical habit whose outline

knows but few digressions in comparison with the established plan found in other

narratives:

We have already arranged what to do in case we get the box open. If the Count is there, VanHelsing and Seward will cut off his head at once and drive a stake through his heart. Morrisand Goldaming and I shall prevent interference, even if we have to use the arms which we shall

6 La Morte Amoureuse, p.1117 Carmilla, p.315

have ready. The professor says that if we can so treat the Count's body, it will soon after fallinto dust. 8

Dracula's opponents come beforehand to an agreement as far as the procedure

concerning the vampire's killing is concerned. However this procedure does not seem truly

original as it merely follows more or less the empirical method of putting an end to the

bloodthirsty creature's life. Even though Dracula's destruction does not exactly follow the

order of the stages already seen for Carmilla's destruction (and even includes an

unexpected change into dust without the use of holy water), a quite strict protocol of

murder remains respected. Indeed first come the exhumation and exposure of the vampiric

body (let us call those resurgence), secondly the ritual killing (censorship) and finally the

bodily division (repression). Thus these subtle variations of the rituals cannot hide the

accuracy and the recurrence of a manifestly maniacal behaviour which only betrays a

psychological disorder.

'They took a stake, a wooden stake, mind you; and this one in the grave, he took the stakewith a hammer and he put it right to her breast. I didn't believe it! And then with one great blowhe drove it right into her. [...] And then, that fellow, that beastly fellow, he reached up for hisshovel and with both his arms he drove it sharp, right into the dead woman's throat. The headwas off like that.'9

In this excerpt an Englishman tells Louis the story of his traumatizing experience in

Eastern Europe. His frenzied tone expresses how insane the Transylvanian countryfolk's

supertitious practices look to him. Indeed they reuse ritual methods of killing whose

persistence betrays the pathological nature. The manifest deeds which structure the

vampire's destruction actually seem to be a substitute for something else: the discovery, the

slaughter and the death of the vampire work as the tangible expression of repressed desires

(the dissection of vampiric bodies for the sake of knowledge) or unconfessed anxieties (the

unbearable confrontation with an answer... which could be the absence of any answer). In

this way the conventional procedure of killing the vampire obviously reminds one of a kind

of obsessional neurosis whose ritual expressions indirectly aim at satisfying these hidden

concerns.

8 Dracula, p.4309 Interview with the Vampire, p.194

And I swung the scythe again, catching him easily. And there was no wound. Just twohands groping for a head that was no longer there.10

Even though Louis somewhat perverts the traditional procedure of killing the

vampire with the use of a scythe (whose symbolism is here eminently ironic, as an undead

creature brings death to the walking dead...), the final stage of beheading nonetheless

remains respected. One can wonder about the persistence of such a deed coming from a

vampire which appears to be modern, definitely different from the others, and therefore

supposed to be innovative. This insistence on decapitation may well betray the real concern

of the destruction which deals more with intellectual issues than with physical ones: the

"ablation" of the head seems to be the most radical way of repression thanks to the final

removal of the mind... Thus the vampiric quest remains characterized by a pathological

obsession which even influences the author's way of telling a vampire story.

3.Traditional protocols of writing the quest

S'il y a un schéma général, on peut le circonscire par la lutte d'un héros contre des forceshostiles jusq'à son triomphe, puis une issue qui est soit l'apothéose (la mort pour avoirtransgressé un interdit, suivie de la transfiguration ou métamorphose en personne divine), soitl'ascension à la sexualité génitale ("Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants")-, schéma ditinitiatique parce qu'on le retrouve dans tous les rituels de passage à l'âge adulte. Avec cettenuance toutefois que l'initiation réelle ou rituelle oblige le futur adulte à mimer une sorte derenaissance laborieuse, conquêtes ou ascèse, au cours de laquelle il apprend à accepter lesrenoncements que la réalité lui imposera[...].11

As one has already seen before (see part II.A.), the structure of the vampiric quest

follows more or less the usual pattern of the traditional quest of romance, despite some

digressions which characterize it. However one can ponder over this strict observance of an

established rule of writing which may well be compared with the pathological rituals

governing the action of the quest itself. Indeed one can wonder if this personal literary

obligation to abide by the canons of the genre is the manifest expression of a repressed

concern. This raises the issue of the underlying unconscious contents of the text, whose

form and substance tell more about writing than it first may seem, as the example of Bram

Stoker's Dracula tends to prove:

10 Interview with the Vampire, p.33711 Psychanalyse et littérature, p.67

Stoker a su par ailleurs utiliser toute la documentation qu'il a accumulée sur la croyance auxvampires en Europe centrale. Ses personnages de vampires sont conformes à la tradition [...].Les prédecesseurs de Stoker avaient pris des libertés avec la tradition légendaire. [...] Stoker adéfini une fois pour toutes le cadre conventionnel des histoires de vampires en respectantscrupuleusement la tradition légendaire telle qu'il l'a trouvée dans les chroniques de l'époque[...].12

This will to respect a conventional framework might simply betray Stoker's concern

for depicting the Slavic folklore with the accuracy of an ethnological documentary. Indeed

the genuine aspect of the narrative remains a well-known driving force in fantastic

literature in general, and particularly in Gothic novels whose apparent truthfulness

enhances the feeling of fear which the author tries to inspire.13 The potential authenticity of

supernatural horror suggested by the form of the text abruptly confronts the readers with

unbearable and frightening realities. Both the narrative voices' outward reliability

(conveyed by a collection of letters and diaries in Dracula and Melmoth the Wanderer, by

Dr. Hesselius' manuscript in Carmilla, by Romuald's testimony to another priest in La

Morte Amoureuse, by the journalist's tapes and notebook in Interview with the Vampire)

and the existence of pieces of information that can be checked (geographical, historical or

scientific ingredients) emphasize this infectious artificial trustworthiness.

Les écrivains contemporains qui font revivre dans leurs romans le personnage de Draculaont renoncé pour la plupart à ce mode de narration auquel ils préfèrent le procédé du récitcontinu, mais ils restent fidèles à la convention utilisée par Stoker, selon laquelle le texte est undocument authentique ou un témoignage que l'auteur n'a fait que reproduire.14

However Dracula's text expresses more than the will of likelihood carefully set up

in order to make the story both probable and frightening. Indeed the recurring use of

precise rules governing the genre echoes the internal reproduction of testimonies within the

story, and gives a ritual form to the text itself. Consequently one can surmise that the very

form of the vampiric quest almost pathologically mimics its contents, and that the writing

of vampire stories follows a traditional protocol which might be the manifest expression of

a latent literary concern. As a result the conventional writing of the vampiric quest betray a

desperate search for a universal way of writing. In the same way, one can also imagine that

12 Jean MARIGNY, Dracula, Collection Figures Mythiques, p.2113 see the chapters entitled "L'indispensable vraisemblance" and "Les documents authentiques" in Françoise DUPEYRON-LAFAY's Le fantastique anglo-saxon (Paris: ellipses 1998), pp.49-5214 Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, p.444

the formal structure of the scenes of killing stand for an indirect confession of the

repressed anxiety about the painful possibility that no universal writing exists...

Thus the way of writing the vampiric quest displays both unconscious and

conflicting concerns which are a literary quest for an absolute wording and the censoring

of the dreaded ending of this fanciful quest. Indeed the writing of vampire stories

apparently pursues an unattainable purpose, which is to let the vampire into the real world

or to let the real world into the words. In a word, vampiric literature aims at unifying

reality and fiction, a finality which looks like a perverted form of the Christian concept of

"the Word was made flesh"... To some extent, the writing of the vampiric quest can be

considered as a search for the way to the divine Creation. However the budding demiurges

often prove to be -and even thoroughly know- that they only remain poor sorcerer's

apprentices. This unsatisfied pretentious ambition can be perceived through somewhat

"dismembered" narratives: the patchwork of elements borrowed from the traditional quest

as well as the constant wavering between reality and fiction create but a Frankenstein-like

fabrication. The mutant text which is finally obtained remains defective and in the image of

the vampire, that is to say truncated if not literally "beheaded".

Thus the vampiric quest which combines the ritual canons of romance with those of

fantastic literature may turn out to be the pathological narrative par excellence.

Consequently it is no wonder that this unhealthy form of writing ends in an

acknowledgement of failure.

B.FAILURE OF THE QUEST

1. Unsuccessful human achievements

Pourtant, si l'on y regarde de plus près, la victoire du bien sur le mal dans Dracula n'est passi manifeste qu'on pourrait le penser. Certes le vampire est bien mis hors d'état de nuire à la findu roman, mais dans un dénouement quelque peu artificiel, car d'un bout à l'autre de l'ouvrage,c'est bien Dracula le véritable héros. Il domine de très loin ses adversaires, et Van Helsing lui-même n'hésite pas à louer les qualités d'intelligence et de courage du vampire. Comme le Satand u Paradis Perdu, qui était censé incarner aux yeux de Milton l'horreur du Péché et de laChute, mais s'imposait en définitive comme le personnage le plus fascinant de ce long poème,Dracula est le mal incarné sans pourtant manquer de panache.15

15 Jean MARIGNY, Dracula, Collection Figures Mythiques, p.24

Jean Marigny's statement seems well in keeping with the idea of a vampiric quest

which might only be the obvious ritual expression of a pathological issue. Indeed Dracula

offers the readers an unhealthy quest which can only lead to a fanciful ending. Hence the

narrative of the vampiric quest proves to be "textually ill", as its obsessional revivals of

established canons finally lead to a perverted ending. The completion of the quest does not

actually look like one because nothing seems to be discovered in the end... Thus the quest

for the vampire is distinguished by a kind of moderate victory as the reading of the

following excerpt tends to corroborate:

It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of breath, thewhole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight.16

Van Helsing and his companions have tracked down Dracula from England to the

Carpathians. In this way they have shown some peculiar stubbornness which betrays their

essential interest in the discovery of the vampire's body. However one can notice that they

have longed for this confrontation in vain: the final and expected encounter ends in the

vanishing of the main protagonist of the story. Consequently the ultimate opportunity to

satisfy the frustated desire to see the vampire figure at last disappears too. Besides,

Quincey Morris's probing of Dracula with the help of his knife does not disclose anything

at all: "It was like a miracle; but... it was not" is implied. As a result neither container nor

content is revealed at the close of the quest, which looks more like a failure.

[...] son beau corps tomba en poussière; ce ne fut plus qu'un mélange affreusement informede cendres et d'os à demi-calcinés. 'Voilà votre maîtresse, seigneur Romuald, dit l'inexorableprêtre en me montrant ces tristes dépouilles, serez-vous encore tenté d'aller promener au Lidoet à Fusine avec votre beauté?' Je baissai la tête; une grande ruine venait de se faire au-dedansde moi.17

The unattainable nature of the vampire's body as well as that of the quest's ending is

painfully expressed in the excerpt above. Indeed the physical approach of the female

vampire should normally stand for an achievement whose completion must sound like a

victory for the human heroes. However it is definitely not the case for Romuald who

explicitly associates Clarimonde's bodily decay with his own intellectual disorientation.

Since the vampire's body has always been displayed to the young priest's eyes, the physical

16 Dracula, p.48417 La Morte Amoureuse, pp.111-112

quest performed by Sérapion is of no interest in his eyes. Thus beyond the mere

disappointing disappearance of a body that he has always owned, Romuald asserts his real

feeling of failure about an intellectual quest which reveals nothing but nothingness.

I watched for opportunity, and rather insinuated than urged my inquiries. Once or twice,indeed, I did attack her more directly. But no matter what my tactics, utter failure wasinvariably the result.18

Laura's questioning of Carmilla looks like the announcement of the inexorably

disappointing ending of the quest for the female vampire. Indeed she reminds one that the

main purpose of the hunt is an intellectual concern, an underlying personal craving for

answers that the vampire figure is expected to conceal. As a result the quest for the female

vampire's body seems somewhat pointless. Actually one can wonder about the necessity to

pursue a body whose flesh has always been more or less attainable. Consequently the

destruction of the vampire only appears as a secondary issue: the disappearance of his body

symbolizes less the escape of the quested object than the vanishing of the container of the

answers really quested for. In a word the vampiric display of absence sets itself up as the

final and complete defeat which invariably rounds off the questioning.

[...] though Aubrey was near the object of his curiosity, he obtained no greated gratificationfrom it than the constant excitement of vainly wishing to break that mistery, which to hisexalted imagination began to assume the appearance of something supernatural.19

Aubrey expresses a tremendous sense of failure and renouncement about his quest

for Lord Ruthven. Once more the issue is not a matter of physical encounter: indeed the

young man regularly has the chance to see the cynical vampire during their long tour of

Europe. Actually his real quest is a questioning which fails just when the vampire's body

disappears at the end of the story. The bloodthirsty creature's final escape coincides to

some extent with the vanishing of a potential oracle, the source of the expected answers.

Thus the physical approach of the vampire body does not put an end to the quest in the way

which was initially expected. It looks like an ambivalent success as it leads to a lack of

knowledge which might paradoxically be the only revelation of the quest.

18 Carmilla, p.26319 The Vampyre, p.7

'I hate him because he tells me the truth, is the language natural to the human mind, fromthe slave of power to the slave of passion' .20

Immalee's words seem quite revealing. Indeed she already secretly knows that her

quest for Melmoth shall end in an ambiguous victory. The young Indian woman regularly

meets the evil wanderer and her questioning only leads to half a failure. The immortal

villain's answers to her questions confront her with the unbearable truth, an intolerable

answer which is that universal answers might well not exist; or if they do exist, they shall

certainly not be found in the vampiric character. As a result the vampire figure asserts itself

as a "hollow" form of the divine or a fanciful godhead the approach of which offers but an

unsuccessful state of disillusion that the creature already experiences itself.

2. Vampiric renouncements

'He has traversed the earth in search of victims, 'Seeking whom he might devour,' -and hasfound no prey, even where he might seek for it with all the cupidity of infernal expectation'. 21

The ending of Melmoth's quest is far from being better than his victims' . Indeed a

parallel can be drawn between the human search for the evil wanderer and the latter's hunt

for human preys. Even though Melmoth's objective apparently differs, as it aims at

discovering a human being to shoulder the responsibility of his fatal bargain with the devil,

the basic unifying thread remains a manifest desire to find a mere body. However the

immortal villain's recurring successes in this challenge (when considering the encounters

with Stanton, Monçada, Immalee...) fail to fulfill his expectations: he explicitly "has found

no prey". Thus just as the vampire's body vanishes, the quested human bodies are

metaphorically "missing" in the sense that they only convey a feeling of physical absence:

'And that was how it was throughout Transylvania and Hungary and Bulgaria, and throughall those countries where the peasants know that the living dead walk, and the legends of thevampires abound. In every village where we did encounter the vampire, it was the same'.

'A mindless corpse?' the boy asked.'Always,' said the vampire. [...] 'they were mindless, empty, two pools that reflected the

moon. No secrets, no truths, only despair.'22

Louis's quest for the vampire from Eastern Europe apparently comes to a successful

ending, as the expected encounter with the searched body finally occurs. However the

20 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.48521 Ibid., p.50122 Interview with the Vampire, p.212

value of this discovery needs to be qualified, as it does not really look like the usual

completion which normally concludes the traditional quest. Even though Louis and

Claudia physically confront themselves with the vampire, no real meeting actually

happens. Indeed the quest ends with a discovery which does not look like one, as they

painfully consider it as an abrupt face-to-face encounter with absence. The repetitive use of

privative words (less, empty, no...) helps to conjure up this unexpected sense of breakdown

associated with the completion of the vampires' quest:

And I would see her sweet and palpable before me, a shimmering, precious creature soon togrow old, soon to die, soon to lose these moments that in their intangibility promised to us,wrongly... wrongly, an immortality.23

This strange impression of moderate victory which inexorably seems to round off

the vampire's quest once more prevails in the excerpt above. Indeed it remains the

characteristic of vampire stories to describe the bloodthisty creature's hunt for preys which

are finally annihilated once discovered. Consequently the vampire's quest for human

beings seems to be based on a paradoxical and ambivalent ending, which combines the

contact with the hunted body and the vanishing of this very same body. Eventually the

satisfaction of the vampiric thirst literally takes the victim away from the vampire because

of death. However this physical disappearance also goes hand in hand with an intellectual

one. Actually the victim's death echoes the final collapse of expectations about

immortality: Louis violently comes up against reality when realizing that human blood

only offers an extended life. Thus the vampire's physical quest also ends in the

disappointing failure of an intellectual quest:

Before, all art held for me the promise of a deeper understanding of the human heart. Nowthe human heart meant nothing. I did not denigrate it. I simply forgot it. The magnificentpaintings of the Louvre were not for me intimately connected with the hands that had paintedthem.24

Louis openly explains that as a vampire, his concrete hunt for human beings

actually hides an abstract quest for "understanding". However the young vampire also

comes to admit that the human heart in which he hopes to find the answers to his questions

fails to satisfy his expectations. Indeed Louis simply has the painful experience of being

23 Ibid., p.4424 Interview with the Vampire, p.344

confronted with "nothing". Once more the ending of the vampire's quest does not offer

revelations but only gaps. However the completion of his search for knowledge looks more

like a discovery of nothingness than a mere non-discovery. Even though it can be

perceived as a failure, the vampire's search nonetheless succeeds in uncovering the human

heart's incapacity to contain the universal secret to which any vampire aspires:

'Then God does not exist... you have no knowledge of his existence?' 'None,' he said.'No knowledge!' I said it again, unafraid of my simplicity, my miserable human pain.'None.''And no vampire here has discourse with God or with the devil!''No vampire that I've ever known,' he said, musing, the fire dancing in his eyes. 'And as far

as I know today, after four hundred years, I am the oldest living vampire in the world.'I stared at him, astonished.Then it began to sink in. It was as I'd always feared, and it was as lonely, it was as totally

without hope. Things would go on as they had before, on and on. My search was over.25

Even though Louis's quest for spirituality in human beings reveals nothing but

emptiness, the young vampire does not immediately acknowledge himself beaten. Indeed

the disappointed expectations originally based on human bodies are transferred to the

enigmatic figure of the elder vampire Armand. However Louis once more only comes up

against a tragic feeling of nothingness, which is conveyed by the cynical and realistic

immortal creature. The ending of the vampire's quest looks even more like a chimera as

Armand implies that there exists nothing of this sort to be discovered. Thus the final

victory of the quest actually proves to be a failure as it substitutes renouncement for the

expected revelation. This peculiar completion of the vampire's quest paradoxically leaves

his main protagonist and the reader at a loss and more puzzled than they initially were.

3.A textual maze of words for the reader

One has the unpleasant impression, when considering the unsuccessful

achievements -whether human or vampiric- which characterize the ending of the vampiric

quests, that the structure of the narrative works like a maze. Indeed one is forced to

conclude that the meanders of this mutant form of quest-myth only bewilder its

protagonists and even bring them back to the "threshold" of the story. The characters

involved in the quest endlessly conjecture about their motives, about the role that they have

25 Ibid., p.257

to play (now that of the hunter, now that of the hunted) and about the contents of the

quested. Even though they expect to improve their condition and to move closer to a new

one, they are eventually confronted with a return to their initial state. Besides the structure

confuses the characters but also the reader who gets lost in the intricacies of what is

perceived as a labyrinthine text.

Le mythe, comme la création artistique, voire comme la structure névrotique (oupsychotique), voile et montre, refoule et révèle, simultanément. Le récit, en ses méandres, livreplus qu'il n'y paraît de non-refoulant/non-refoulé issu du vampirisme.26

The text which deals with the vampiric quest is in the image of the quest itself.

Indeed its very appearance is a clue in itself, a manifest "surfacing" which both reveals and

conceals underlying elements. Therefore words and their "arrangement" on the sheet of

paper are similar to a veil hiding a message. However the sheer presence of this

concealment remains a message in itself, and so is it for the obvious labyrinth-like

construction of the narrative in vampire stories too. Even though the intricated structure of

the vampiric quest openly aims at bewildering the reader, it also displays a mechanism

which is the very heart of the story, the accurate study of which discloses more about the

text than the text itself. Thus the creation of a narrative maze in a vampire story such as

Dracula appears as an essential authorial device which needs to be explored:

Stoker a également reconnu la nécessité d'éviter un schéma narratif linéaire. L'énoncé deson roman éclate littéralement car la plupart des personnages deviennent tour à tour narrateurset leurs récits, contenant chacun une part de la vérité, forment une sorte de kaléidoscopeoriginal qui fait sans cesse rebondir l'intérêt de l'intrigue tout en maintenant le mystère en cequi concerne le vampire lui-même.27

Bram Stoker manipulates his reader thanks to his way of writing the vampiric

quest. Indeed his choice of several narrative voices is well in keeping with the idea of a

narrative maze, as it more or less aims at confusing the reader. Actually the latter gets lost

in a split narration (if not a "dismembered" or "beheaded" one as already seen in part

III.A.3) which offers but few reliable landmarks, and ends up being disoriented by

characters who constantly waver between the status of narrators and "narrated". The

abundance of narrative techniques (letters, diaries, press cuttings...) and narrators works

26 Le Vampirisme, p.28627 Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, p.438

like the multiple junctions of a labyrinth. As a result the text purposely offers more forked

tracks than a single and straight itinerary.

Ce schéma déconcertant se révèle particulièrement efficace dans la perspective du récitfantastique car il enveloppe les faits d'un voile de mystère et, tout en créant un climatd'incertitude, il donne à l'histoire une certaine vraisemblance et une apparence d'objectivitédans la mesure où elle résulte d'une multitude de témoignages et non plus d'un narrateurunique. Dracula, sur ce plan, apparaît comme une oeuvre très originale qui se distingue desautres romans de l'époque et que l'on déchiffre à la manière d'une sorte de rébus.28

The multiplicity of documents and testimonies which can be found either in

Dracula or in Melmoth the Wanderer also enhances the impression of confusing directions

inherent in a maze. However whether the narrative is told by a single voice or several ones,

the result is almost the same in every vampire story. The first-person narrative creates an

artificial subjectivity which does not seem more reliable: the narrator imposes himself on

the reader who can only hesitate when confronted with this biased guide. For instance

victims like Laura in Carmilla and Romuald in La Morte Amoureuse look like questionable

references as they do not always have a clear perception of what actually happens (they

even openly admit that they often doubt the exactness of their memories). As for Louis in

Interview with the Vampire, his status as an oppressed character definitively compromises

his reliability as an objective narrator (indeed the continuation of The Vampire Chronicles

with The Vampire Lestat reveals the latter's version of the story)... Finally The Vampyre

only offers the reader an enigmatic third-person narrator who cannot be trusted more than

the others. Thus the different narrative voices add to the feeling of uncertainty which

simply misleads the reader into the story.

The reader should be forewarned that the design by which Maturin connects the variousstories-within-stories in this novel is a preposterously convoluted contrivance, to the despair ofhis earliest critics, and to the embarrassment of his later admirers. It has neither the symmetryof Frankenstein nor the careful organization of Wuthering Heights. Fortunately, though theessential logic of the plotting is still clear enough to follow, provided that one is willing not justto suspend disbelief but to throw it to the winds. [...] A noticeable symptom of this is that thelayers of narration which one might expect to be marked by distinct narrative voices are in facttonally continuous, so that the reader will often forget (as Maturin himself seems to do) justwho is speaking at any given point, and just how many pairs of inverted commas are hungaround each accident.29

28 Ibid., p.44329 Melmoth the Wanderer, intr. Chris BALDICK, pp.x to xii

The roundabout ways outwardly used by the author of Melmoth the Wanderer in his

text tend to imitate the structure of a labyrinth. Indeed the reader gets lost in the successive

"stories-within-stories" and tries to find the narrative thread to get out of them, in the same

way that one tries to decipher a code or to find the latent significance of a dream. However

the only way out of the story turns out to be the entrance itself, as the multiple changes of

direction in the narrative only lead to an end which echoes but the beginning of the novel.

Indeed the vampiric quest proves to be a paradoxical search that is triggered by an absence

and ended with this same absence: the vampire's elusiveness entails a hunt which

inexorably leads to his disappearance. As an outcome the vampire story sets itself up as a

kind of dead-end narrative: the completion of the quest is both a failure and a success,

since getting out of the maze appears as a moderate achievement. Indeed the ending of the

vampiric quest is the very contrary of a progress, as its protagonists merely move back to

square one. Yet one can ponder over this textual device, which might try to convey more

than a sense of failure.

C. A DEAD END HIDING PLURALISM

1.Writing and pretending to be God: limits of creation and knowledge

Il est difficile, pour ne pas dire impossible, d'être un artiste sans en passer par le crime.Prédateur du réel, vampire de tout ce qui l'entoure, l'artiste nourrit son oeuvre en se nourrissantlui même, psychiquement, affectivement, goulûment, comme une goule [....]. Ce qui sauvel'artiste de la damnation et lui assure les circonstances atténuantes, c'est qu'il ne vise pas sasurvie propre, mais une survie sublimée, celle de son oeuvre.30

One has already seen to what extent the writer tries to attain the divine (see III.A.3),

since he substitutes himself for the almighty creator in the fictional world that he builds.

The excerpt above enhances this idea by the addition of a search for heavenly immortality

through writing. Indeed the author of vampire stories mimics his main character as he tries

to attain eternal life thanks to literary posterity: his work literally becomes vampire-like

because it endlessly perpetuates thanks to its readership. However the obsessional

vanishings which characterize the narrative (see III.B.1&2), and the labyrinthine aspect of

the text (see III.B.3) seem to show the limits of this process. Deification does not remain

30 Mariska KOOPMAN-THURLINGS in Les Vampires, Colloque de Cerisy-La-Salle, p.176

accessible to everyone, and the author's devices to suggest the sense of failure about the

vampiric quest might actually betray a confession of his incapacity to complete his

ambitious literary project and to disclose any revelation.

On s'aperçût que le domaine de l'imagination était une "réserve" formée lors de la transitiondouloureuse du principe de plaisir au principe de réalité afin d'accorder un substitut à lasatisfaction pulsionelle que la vie impose d'abandonner. L'artiste, comme le névrosé, se retiraità l'écart de cette réalité insatisfaisante, dans ce monde de l'imagination, mais à la différence dunévrosé il savait comment retrouver le chemin de la solide réalité. Ses oeuvres étaient unaccomplissement imaginaire de ses désirs inconscients tout comme les rêves, avec lesquelsd'ailleurs elles avaient en commun d'être un compromis puisqu'elles devaient comme eux éviterd'affronter directement les forces du refoulement. Mais à l'inverse des productions associalesnarcissiques du rêve, elles se révélaient capables de provoquer la sympathie des autres,d'éveiller et de satisfaire chez eux les mêmes désirs inconscients.31

Thus the writing of vampire stories might intrinsically conceal the aspirations for

the divine which more or less exist in every human being. In almost the same way that the

vampire tries to ape Christ, the narrative and the stucture of the vampire story aim at

imitating the Book and at finding the original way to the Word. The completion of such an

achievement shall give the key to Creation in a literary sense and open the doors to

omniscient knowledge. However one can notice that despite the desperate attempts to

uncover biblical secrets, the narrative only expresses a manifest incompetence. Indeed the

Christ-vampire finds mere death after his martyrdom, and his non-resurrection darkly

concludes the book. As a result one can wonder if this ending does not betray less the

author's acknowledgment of failure in his literary project than a reflection about the

writer's power and the meaning given to words.

'Religion!' what is that? is it a new thought?' -'It is the consciousness of a Being superior toall worlds and their inhabitants, because he is the Maker of all, and will be their judge -of aBeing whom we cannot see, but in whose power and presence we must believe, thoughinvisible -of one who is every where unseen; always acting, though never in motion; hearingall things, but never heard.' 32

When reading the word "religion" in the excerpt above, one cannot help thinking

that "writing" is to be understood. Indeed Melmloth's words induce a reflection about the

limits of literary creation of which the immortal villain remains the example. Actually the

act of writing vampire stories echoes the act of writing about the vampire himself within

31 Sigmund FREUD in Psychanalyse et Littérature, p.5932 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.290

the story, which eventually means in both cases writing about something that is beyond

one's scope. Even though the author is supposed to be omniscient and consequently

expected to own complete knowledge about his creation, he writes about a creature the

issues of which lie beyond his learning and beyond that of every human being. As the

vampire figure symbolizes secrets and truths unattainable even for his "Maker", the

vampiric quest can only end with a providential disappearance that preserves the

conjectures concerning the vampire's secrets. However these confusing tricks of the text

also offer an openness of interpretation for the readership:

They have such a religion, but what use have they made of it? Intent on their settledpurpose of discovering misery wherever it could be traced, and investing it where it could not,they have found, even in the pure pages of that book, which, they presume to say, contains theirtitle to peace on earth, and happiness hereafter, a right to hate, plunder, and murder each other.[...] One point is plain, they all agree that the language of the book is, 'Love one another,' whilethey all translate that language , 'Hate one another.' 33

Even though Melmoth only seems to denounce the absurdity of human beings as far

as the deciphering of the Scriptures is concerned, another issue pervades the excerpt.

Indeed the evil wanderer indirectly points out the limits of creation in writing, which even

in the case of the Book fails to disclose the expected knowledge. However he also indicates

that writing sometimes succeeds in creating a multiplicity of readings. Indeed Melmoth

tends to prove that when confronted to an apparent "textual dead end", the reader only

projects his own repressed desires and fears onto the meaning of words. So the multiple

interpretations of the unsolved symbols and abstruse gestures in vampire stories more or

less reminds one of the different biased readings of the Bible which lead to the foundation

of several dissenting Churches. Thus the issue of the plurality of interpretations in vampiric

literature is openly raised: the text of vampire stories displays overt metaphors and images

the key of which is purposely not given to the reader, not only because the author himself

does not have it, but also because it leaves a place in the text for the reader to slip his own

concerns.

2.Questioning ourselves in reading and reading our questions

33 Melmoth the Wanderer, pp.306-307

The reader often places himself in a passive position, as he unconsciously expects

the text to disclose information. However the text of vampire stories is conspicuous by the

presence of many informational gaps. Indeed the vampiric quest in itself remains an

indefinite concept whose protagonists, motives and objects are hardly settled. Besides the

ending of the quest includes many incomplete revelations the meaning of which seems

abstruse. As a result the reader finds himself confronted with a quest which raises more

questions than it gives answers since both the form and the substance provide him with no

fixed interpretation. Thus the lacunas of the text constantly make the reader think and react

throughout the narrative and provoke his own interpretations, that is to say an actualization

which is but a reflection of the reader's questioning.

Pour le Dictionnaire des symboles de Gheerbrant et Chevalier (p.993), 'l'interprétation sefondera sur la dialectique du persécuteur-persécuté, de l'avaleur-avalé. Le vampire symbolisel'appétit de vivre, qui renaît chaque fois qu'on le croit apaisé et que l'on s'épuise à satisfaire envain tant qu'il n'est pas maîtrisé. En réalité, on transfère sur l'autre cette faim dévoratrice, alorsqu'elle n'est qu'un phénomène d'autodestruction [...]'.34

Far from easily delivering their meaning to the reader, vampire stories only

confront him with a puzzling ending and informational absences which raise a problem.

Indeed the vampiric quest stands for a meaningless genre which leaves the reader

unsatisfied and triggers a personal reflection. The vampire's hunger for knowledge

eventually becomes that of the reader who then embarks upon an introspection.

Consequently the frustrated reading leads to a kind of inner reading: the unsuccessful quest

for meaning entails a form of self-questioning in order to fill the gaps with the help of one's

own interpretative faculties. However these interpretations are strongly influenced by the

reader's affectivity and emotional background as the issues concern him too. As an

outcome the reader has his heart set on the quest the main protagonist of which he finally

becomes identified with.

Il pouvait a priori sembler saugrenu que le vampire pût devenir un jour un héros. Pour lelecteur ou le spectateur, le héros est une sorte de représentation du surmoi, une image du sujetidéalisée, épurée de tous les aspects négatifs qui s'attachent aux sombres pulsions du ça, unpersonnage dans lequel on doit pouvoir se projeter [...]. Dans un monde comme le nôtre oùnous avons perdu les certitudes du passé, où les notions de bien et de mal sont toutes relatives,Dracula est devenu un héros tel que nous les aimons de nos jours, c'est-à-dire un être

34 Roger BOZZETTO in Les Vampires, Colloque de Cerisy-La-Salle, p.129

ambivalent et complexe, qui n'est pas nécessairement bon mais auquel nous pouvons nousidentifier puisqu'il représente nos propres limites et nos propres contradictions.35

As the vampire stands for a figure constantly in search for truth, stalking the hidden

meaning of life and questing for knowledge, he easily becomes the heroic character of a

perverted romance into which the reader can project his own repressed anxious questions

and frustrated thirst for learning. Indeed the vampire corresponds to the reader's narcissistic

expectations: his absence of any fixed meaning allows him to graft his own concerns into

his representation. Thus the vampire actually does not leave for his own quest but for the

quest of the reader who gives his life to him and puts his interpretations and his questions

in the place of the gaps left by the text.

Qu'est-ce que je lis quand je lis? Qu'est-ce que lit un écrivain quand il écrit? La réponse estla même: dans l'oeuvre littéraire quelle qu'elle soit, qu'on la produise ou qu'on la consomme, onse lit d'abord soi-même.36

The way one interprets the vampire and his quest tells a lot about oneself. Indeed

vampire stories appear as passive crude representations, and the interpretations that one

gives of them literally disguise their manifest nothingness. Actually these interpretations of

the vampiric quest betray the questions that preoccupy the reader when reading the story:

they are but the reflection of his unconscious aspirations. As a result the concerns of the

reader and the concerns of the vampire almost merge into one, but give as many

interpretations and biased views as readers. The vampire does not offer one universal

answer but a privileged literary outlet to relieve one's heart of the questions which torment

it. So it is no wonder to be confronted with a multiplicity of readings in the end.

35 Jean MARIGNY, Dracula, Collection Figures Mythiques, p.7436 Psychanalyse et littérature, p.36

CONCLUSION

[...] we ask with the desponding and restless scepticism of Pilate, 'What is truth?' but theoracle that was so eloquent one moment, is dumb the next, or if it answers, it is with thatambiguity that makes us dread we have to consult again- again- and for ever- in vain.1

This might be the final answer for those who reach the end of the vampiric quest.

Indeed the vampire appears as the absurd vehicle of his own questioning: he triggers

questions that he simply cannot answer, since his emptiness reflects the reader's

expectations. As a result the quest for the vampire is vain for it leads to question oneself

about issues lying beyond one's scope. Besides this questioning may take the appearance of

a Sisyphean device, as the pursuit of the hypothetical truth always brings the reader back to

square one. Eventually the vampire remains the cyclical way which leads to nothing as the

following excerpt tends to suggest:

There was one great tomb more Lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and noblyproportioned. On it was but one word

DRACULAThis then was the Un-Dead home of the King-Vampire, to whom so many more were due.

Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew.2

The vampire's grave harbours nothingness: it literally looks like a dark corridor

which leads to nowhere. Basically it seems to be an attractive box the door of which

conceals but a dead end. When reading the word "DRACULA" engraved on the tombstone

of the burial vault, one cannot help comparing it with the cover of the book itself. Indeed

the novel as well as the tomb are expected to be the sanctuary of answers eternally hunted.

However the epitaph is but a lie: indeed the vampire body does not lie (!) in the pages of

the book. The title of the story wrongly promises the reader an encounter with the object of

his interrogation at the end of the vampiric quest. However that promise cannot be fulfilled

as it is also synonymous with an unattainable revelation.

'And suppose the vampire who made you knew nothing, and the vampire who made thatvampire knew nothing, and the vampire before him knew nothing, and so it goes back and

1 Melmoth the Wanderer, p.852 Dracula, p.476

back, nothing proceeding from nothing, until there is nothing! And we must live with theknowledge that there is no knowledge.'3

Louis expresses the underlying doubt which goes hand in hand with the quest for

the vampire. This excerpt clearly proves that the hunt for the vampire not only echoes a

questioning about intellectual issues, but also a questioning of the vampire's capacity to

contain such issues. As soon as the beginning, the searchers involved in the vampiric quest

admit that their pursuit may be unsuccessful, since they intimately know that they endow

their prey with their own expectations of knowledge. As a result their quest turns out to be

a quest for the hypothetical receptacle of a universal truth. Thus is no wonder that these

hunters eventually come up against a disappointing ending.

It seemed more than ever absurd to me that Lestat should have died, if in fact he had; andlooking back on him, as it seemed I was always doing, I saw him more kindly than before. Lostlike the rest of us. Not the jealous protector of any knowledge he was afraid to share. He knewnothing. There was nothing to know.4

Indeed vampires finally seem to conceal nothing. Their apparent emptiness remains

only filled with their pursuers' endless conjectures about a potential source of learning. As

an upshot their discovery only reveals both the hunters and the reader's personal questions

and their own repressed concerns about life. The vampire discloses no answer but a

mirroring of his searchers' expectations. Consequently he imposes himself as a means for

reflection or a catalyst of thoughts. He stands but for a kind of "vacant zone" where human

minds can liberate their repressed thirst for pondering over essential issues.

[...] ce n'est qu'avec quelque chose comme la littérature (fût-elle orale dans les âges et lescivilisations sans écriture) que l'homme s'interroge sur lui-même, son destin cosmique, sonhistoire, son fonctionnement social et mental. 5

The vampiric quest appears as a literary device which simply allows the reader to

project his own concerns onto the stage of literature. However more than being a mere

process of identification with the vampiric character, vampiric literature allows the reader

to graft his biased interpretations onto a creature which is defined by the quest motif. In a

word vampiric literature offers a puzzling structure and a character the meaning of which

3 Interview with the Vampire, p.1334 Ibid., p.2595 Psychanalyse et Littérature, p.6

purposely remains vague in order to trigger the reader's questioning about them. However

this questioning leads to subjective interpretations which betray the reader's concerns. As

an outcome the vampiric quest eventually becomes the human reader's "property" thanks to

his personal reading of it.

La vie éternelle du vampire pose en effet le problème du devenir de toute vie humaine.L'homme rêve de l'infini mais cette rêverie ne peut qu'aboutir à la béance absolue du néant.Figure tragique et solitaire, qui poursuit éternellement sa route sans savoir où il va, le vampiresymbolise à bien des égards l'absurdité de l'existence.6

Even though the vampire may convey a high sense of loss and despair as he

definitely does not answer the reader's expectations, vampiric literature anyhow allows the

latter to express manifestly his vain dreams about the "infinite". It means that vampiric

literature does not only promise fanciful revelations and distressing prospects, but also

suggests more engaging intellectual horizons since dreams -though deceptive- remain the

indirect satisfaction of a desire. As a result one can wonder if vampiric literature does not

stand for a kind of stopgap measure which soothes existential human worries. Indeed it

offers the opportunity to think about oneself, an evergreen topic, which may explain its

persistent popularity throughout history since its first appearance on the literary stage.

6 Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, pp.590-591

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCES:

-GAUTIER Théophile, La Morte Amoureuse (1836) in Récits fantastiques, Bookking

International 1993, pp.75 to pp.112.

-MATURIN Charles Robert, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), Oxford World's Classics 1989,

560pp.

-POLIDORI John, The Vampyre in The Vampyre and other tales of the macabre (1819),

Oxford World's Classics 1998, pp.3 to pp.23.

-RICE Anne, Interview with The Vampire (1976), Warner Books 1994, 368pp.

-SHERIDAN LE FANU Joseph, Carmilla in In A Glass Darkly (1871), Oxford World's

Classics 1993, pp.243 to pp.319.

-STOKER Bram, Dracula (1897), Penguin 1993, 520pp.

SECONDARY SOURCES:

About vampirism:

-CENTRE CULTUREL INTERNATIONAL, Les Vampires, Colloque de Cerisy, Albin

Michel 1993, 303pp. (pp.113 to pp.212)

-GOENS Jean, loups-garous, vampires et autres monstres: enquêtes médicales et

littéraires, CNRS Editions 1993, 143pp. (Chap.4 pp.63 to pp.89)

-GRIVEL Charles, Dracula, De la mort à la vie, Editions de l'Herne 1997, 252pp.

-MARIGNY Jean, Dracula, Editions Autrement 1997, collection Figures Mythiques,

165pp.

-MARIGNY Jean, Le vampire dans la littérature anglo-saxonne, thesis defended at the

University of Grenoble III in 1983, 2 volumes, Didier Erudition 1985, 880pp.

-MARIGNY Jean, Sang pour sang, le réveil des vampires, Gallimard 1993, 144pp.

About psychoanalysis:

-BELLEMIN-NOËL Jean, Psychanalyse et littérature (1978), Que sais-je? No 1752,

Presses Universitaires de France 1995, 127 pp.

-FREUD Sigmund, Introduction à la psychanalyse (1922), Petite Bibliothèque Payot 1961,

440pp.

-MILNER Max, On est prié de fermer les yeux , Gallimard 1991, 284pp.

-WILGOWICZ Pérel, Le Vampirisme, de la Dame Blanche au Golem, Essai sur la pulsion

de mort et sur l'irreprésentable, Césura Lyon Edition 1991, 329pp.

About literature in general:

-DUPEYRON-LAFAY Françoise, Le Fantastique anglo-saxon, De l'autre côté du réel,

Ellipses 1998, 160pp.

-FRYE Northrop, Anatomy of criticism: four essays (1957), Penguin Books 1990, 383pp.

-GRAY Martin, A Dictionnary of Literary Terms (1984), Longman York Press 1992,

324pp.

-PRAZ Mario, The Romantic Agony (1933), Oxford University Press 1951, 479pp.

-ROUX Jean-Paul, Le Sang, Mythes, symboles et réalités, Fayard 1988, 407pp.

Additional readings:

-DE TROYES Chrétien, Perceval ou le Roman du Graal (1182), Gallimard 1974, 376pp.

-MELVILLE Herman, Moby Dick (1851), Wordsworth Classics 1993, 467pp.

APPENDIX

A short chronology of vampiric literature

1773 Gottfried August Bürger, Lenore

1797 Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Bride of Corinth

1816 Samuel Coleridge, Christabel

Samuel Coleridge, La Belle Dame sans Merci

1819 John Polidori, The Vampyre

1820 John Keats, Lamia

CharlesRobert Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer

Charles Nodier, Lord Ruthwen ou les Vampires

1827 Prosper Mérimée, La Guzla

1836 Théophile Gautier, La Morte Amoureuse

1847 Thomas Preskett Prest or James Malcom Rymer,

Varney the vampyre or the feast of blood

1852 Alexandre Dumas, Le Vampire

1860 Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

1866 Charles Baudelaire, Les métamorphoses du vampire

1872 Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla

1897 Bram Stoker, Dracula

Rudyard Kipling, The Vampire

1924 Howard Philip Lovecraft, The Shunned House

1954 Robert Matheson, I am Legend

1975 Stephen King, Salem's Lot

Fred Saberhagen, The Dracula Tapes

1976 Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

1978 Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Hotel Transylvania

1981 P. Tonkin, The Journal of Edwin Underhill

1984 Somtow, Vampire Junction

1985 Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

1988 Anne Rice, The Queen of the Damned

1992 Anne Rice, The Tale of the Body Thief

1995 Anne Rice, Memnoch the Devil

A short chronology of vampire movies

1922 MURNAU Friedrich, Nosferatu

1931 BROWNING Tod, Dracula

DREYER Carl, Vampyr

1958 FISHER Terence, Horror of Dracula

1960 VADIM Roger, Et mourir de plaisir

1967 POLANSKI Roman, Dance of the vampires

1978 HERZOG Werner, Nosferatu, Phantom der Nacht

1983 SCOTT Tony, The Hunger

1987 SCHUMACHER Joël, The Lost Boys

1992 COPPOLA Francis Ford, Bram Stoker's Dracula

1994 JORDAN Neil, Interview with the vampire