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.