final project proposal

For my final project I am looking toward doing an extension of my Literary analysis paper. The paper I did for my analysis was regarding the text Dracula; for my paper I chose to explore the motif's of female sexuality along with the battle between past knowledge and present knowledge. However, for my final project I do not believe these motif's connect particularly well with a single other novel we have read thus far in this class, although there are hints of such motif's throughout in most all the novels we have read thus far. Therefore, for my final project I was planning on incorporating all of the villians or monsters read thus far into one sort of monster analysis. The characters that made the cut would be Frankenstein, Dracula, Monk?, Heathcliff (possibly not I don't really feel as if his character was dominant enough or as dynamic as the other characters throughout), Lestat & Louis as a duo, and possibly one of the characters from beloved which I have yet to indulge in.
In the analyis I will discuss motives, beliefs, causes, setting contribution towards advancing plot, human nature vs. monster nature, ultimate character downfalls, mistakes, plot possibilities. I will be trying to incorporate some of my original motifs from Dracula such as female sexuality and the battle for past and present, However as I said they just aren't apparent in a few of our stories. As a possiblity I would like to leave open I was thinking about maybe also, a spoof short story that although it would be based off of sarcasm; I believe I could incorporate character aspects in a very interesting piece with a humorous twist. I do not believe for this satire or whatever you would like to call it, that I could incorporate all of the characters but I do believe some of the characters have interesting parallels and very controversial and substantial differences (more so the latter) that could make for an in depth character analysis that would actually be somewhat interesting to read.

Too Far Rice..... Too Far

On page 262, Benefiel quite plainly states the elusiveness of the vampire character over its life by describing it as, " the figure of a vampire, so varying and adaptable in the hands of many authors, became a liminal, transgressive figure, a stage upon whome the fears and secret desires of society could be acted." From my brief introduction to the vampire character through this class as well as some main stream references i've obtained over my life; I completely agree with Benefiel in the sense that Rice's Interview with a Vampire, is a novel portraying the traditional mortal family with a vampiric twist. The mortal family is set up through vampiric notions; such is that of how the fathers are put into place, and also how Rice sets up Louis to almost be the maternal figure in the sense that Lestat trains her to kill and survive while Louis teaches her how to grow up and how to indulge in life around her. I enjoy Benefiel's ideas of the vampiric family as being dynamic especially through Rice's work; However I do not find this article to be ground breaking in the sense that this is exactly what our class has been discussing over the past week and a half while reading Interview.
The quote from pg 262 beggining this blog, explains in general terms exactly what I believe Rice's novel to be directed towards-that being exploring the secret desires of society as well as exploiting the idiocy within the perfect mortal American family. Not to say the perfect American family is not desirable; yet it is near impossible, and who is to say that dysfunctional families aren't perfectly functional? Rice's controversial choice to implement the vampiric child of Claudia into the world of dysfunctional bisexual fathers is interesting enough. I understand that from Benefiel's point of view about vampires, "most can be categorized, if anything, as bisexual,"(268) and also from our classes point of view that there is a much deeper meaning to the twisted reality of the sexual vampiric family-that being from what we've discussed, to portray the sick and twisted secret desires of our society? From personal opinion, i cannot wrap my head around this, due to the fact that I do not believe society to have these secret desires. Yes, indeed there are the sick and twisted roaming the earth; but to broadly state them as everyone's secret sexual desires I believe to be absurd. Interview with a Vampire makes for a very interesting novel, however I believe it digs and tries to expand the vampiric nature too far with its sexual inuendo's and explicit creepy sexuality. Such is that when Louis is describing his and Claudia's relationship he calls her and himself, "Father and Daughter. Lover and Lover."(Interview 90)
Rice definately trotted down new paths with her expansively creepy Vampire characters. The book as a whole is a very entertaining and brilliant read; However, when analyzing the text for what it is; it goes against every grain of my being-that being my straight, heterosexual, non-child molesting self.

Vampiric struggles?

The first hand account of Louis' life as a vampire gives way to this new sense of vampire that Anne Rice has created through her novel, Interview With a Vampire. I believe that with this novel a new age of vampires became apparent. A new age of vampires, or vampire, where his (Louis') shortcoming, doubts, and his fears all come into light with this interview style novel. Never before, or at least from what I have read, has human emotion been so deeply intertwined with vampiric passion, such is that within Louis.
"You must understand that what I felt for Babette now was a desire for communication, stronger than any other desire i then felt...except for the physical desire for.....blood."(67)Louis is a character in a constant struggle with his once incomplete human life to his now incomplete vampiric life. There is a constant struggle between the two; one which Rice wishes to display prominantly. He wishes so deeply for a connection with someone other than Lestat, while also seemingly wishing to keep his human reality in tact; although it is now non-existent; something Louis must come to terms with. This struggle between human and vampiric life comes more into focus for me with the addition to the squad-Claudia. She is a vampire women in a beautiful doll like child's body. To me this is the most abstract and confusing character in the novel. Her presence is uncanny to say the least. Her representation of womanly beauty through her seductive vampirisim and yet she often times falls back into a childlike needy role. Claudia as a character is one that seems to be so easily to break her basically non-existent human ties; or does she? Louis says on pg 99, "And then strange things began to happen, for though she said little and was the chubby, round-figured child still, I'd find her tucked in the arm of my chair reading the work of Aristotle or Boethius or a new novel just come over the Atlantic. Or pecking ou the music of Mozart we'd only heard the night before with an infallible ear." This of course he is speaking of Claudia who is beginning to dynamically grow up into a woman of the world. However, she most continually throughout the novels falls back into a child like state. Such is that on pg 138, when she is weeping over Louis' repulsion for her, "I foundher lying on my bed in the place where I often read, her knees drawn up, her whole frame shaking with her sobs. The sound of it was terrible. It was more heartfel, more awful than her mortal crying had even been."
Louis and Claudia as Rice's character for me represent a dynamic coming of a vampire unlike that of the stereotyped evil, bloodlusting, castle dwelling, vampire of prior. This new age vampire, mostly Louis, is one that seems to have an innate feeling of struggle between his human and vampiric nature. Of course his human nature is now non-existent; it is something that is most interesting to watch as his character develops and copes with his new way of life, ultimately becoming desentisized to his irrefutable blood lust.