The diploma thesis "Bram Stoker and Sheridan LeFanu: An Analysis of their Irish Horror Fiction" deals with the analysis of the varied aspects linked with the themes of horror stories of two Irish writers. Both writers, Joseph Sheridan LeFanu and Bram Stoker, were Protestants from Dublin whose works are renowned worldwide. An emphasis is made on the study of Gothic settings and the aim of the thesis is to specifically find and to analyze characteristic elements of Gothic fiction of these authors. This thesis is concerned with Bram Stoker´s Dracula (1897) and also with the story "Dracula´s Guest". It will analyse short stories such as the novella Carmilla and also "The Familiar" by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu.

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Denna uppsats behandlar Joseph Sheridan Le Fanus kortroman ”Carmilla”(1871-72). Berättelsen handlar om hur den unga kvinnan Laura lär känna den mystiska Carmilla, och de tycks forälska sig i varandra. Men Carmilla visar sig vara en vampyr, och hon dödas. Tolkningar av verket har gått isär kring huruvida berättelsen ska forstås som ”queer” och transgressiv, eller som patriarkal och konservativ. I min läsning av verket utgår jag från Tzvetan Todorovs undersokning av den fantastiska genren i boken The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre(1975). Den fantastiska genren karaktäriseras enligt Todorov av en hermeneutisk tvekan mellan olika förklaringar av en övernaturlig händelse. Jag undersöker hur ”Carmilla” passar in i denna genre, samt undersöker huruvida Lauras känslor inför Carmilla, där hon tvekar mellan skräck och kärlek, kan förstås som en form av fantastik. Slutsatsen är att en fantastisk läsning av ”Carmilla” kan belysa hur verket undflyr en tolkning som ser verkets ideologiska innehåll som fast och entydigt. Istället menar jag att tolkningsarbetet kan ses som ett begär efter kunskap, som speglas av hur Lauras eget begär gestaltas i berättelsen, samt hur själva läsakten kan ses som meningsskapande.

Thesis advisor: Alan Richardson / This thesis examines the ways two Victorian authors employed the literary vampire to respond to contemporary anxieties regarding women and their role in society. The primary texts of interest in this thesis are Florence Marryat's 1897 novel The Blood of the Vampire and Sheridan LeFanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla. This thesis explores the way each story frames the vampire’s gender, sexuality, and racial background through the lens of her monstrosity. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: English.

This thesis paper gives a brief history of the vampire narrative and its role in representing the collective anxieties of an age as well as serving as a metaphor for oppressed peoples. It uses Bram Stoker’s Dracula and J. Sheridan le Fanu’s Carmilla as historical examples of how the vampire adapts to suit issues of the day such as reverse colonization and female sexuality, respectively. The latter part of this paper speculates on the future role of the vampire in literature and proposes that the vampire could be used to discuss transgender issues as well as challenge the gender binary. It addresses the suitability of the vampire narrative in particular for representing gender as a spectrum using the lenses of Foucault’s heterotopias, Kristeva’s abject, and Freud’s uncanny and pulls examples of early evidence of this trend from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.

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This dissertation is a text analysis of the short novel Carmilla (1872) by the Irish ghost story-author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. It is a close reading analysis where I apply a queer theoretical perspective using Mia Franck’s model to analyze different silence practices in Carmilla. I focus on the female vampire Carmilla and her companion Laura and how they are portrayed in this short novel. I will ask the questions: do the characters Carmilla and Laura show a non-heterosexual relationship, passion and desire? How do they depart from the gender norm and can they be seen as characters who deviate from what society considers ‘normal’ behaviour? And can Carmilla and Laura’s relationship be seen as an example of silenced homosexuality and in what way is it expressed? Carmilla and Laura’s behaviour can certainly be described as queer and it is effective to examine the novella using silence practices through a queer perspective. Many of the practices are written silences. Mostly, its things that the reader realizes before the storyteller Laura does herself. They reveal numerous oddities in the story, taking the form of narrative, camouflaged, performative, ritualized and existential silences. Prominent examples are the way Carmilla hides both her vampiric and lesbian sides which Laura is repelled at in addition to her own lustful and passionate emotions. As a future teacher, one of my most important jobs will be to educate my pupils about democratic values and that all kinds of discrimination should be discouraged. An essay of this sort is one way to educate them in how gender and sexuality can be seen from historical, political and cultural perspectives.

Devenu célèbre sous les traits de Dracula, le vampire est un monstre révélateur et résilient qui s'est fait archétype incontournable de la culture populaire et dont l'existence diégétique précède le roman de Bram Stoker. Du folklore à la fiction et de l'ombre à la lumière, son évolution est représentative des sociétés et des époques dans lequel il revient à la vie. A la fois transgressifs et normatifs, ses avatars jouent un rôle cathartique en incarnant le refus des lois humaines naturelles et divines, mais aussi la réitération de ces règles et la création de canons littéraires. Cette étude diachronique centrée sur "Carmilla" (1872), "Dracula" (1897) et les vampires d'Anne Rice démontre que leurs aventures invitent à réfléchir autant aux conséquances des fautes qu'à la validité des normes, à l'essence de la nature et des failles humaine et à la fonction libératrice des personnages de fiction et particulièrement des monstres. / Known to most as Dracula, the vampire is revealing and resilient monster whose diegetic existence predates Stoker's novel, and that has become a key figure of popular culture. From folklore to fiction and from shadow to ligjhte, its evolution is indicative of the times and societies in wich it return to life. Equally transgressive and normative, its avatars play a cathartic role aas they epitomize rejection of human, natural and divine laws, but also the reiteration of the rules and the creation of literary canons. This diachronic study focused on "Carmilla" (1872), "Dracula" (1897) and Anne Rice's vampires shows that their adventures induce reflection on both the consequences of wrongdoing and the validity of norms, on the essence of human nature and hubris, and the liberating fucntion of fictional characters, particulary monsters.

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