The appearance of Gothic in the architecture of the Middle Ages was the starting point and the muse of Gothic literature. The lack of simplicity, symmetry, regularity and non-conformity to nature inspired the features of Gothic literature: horror/terror, dark environment, paranormal, evil creatures, supernatural entities (vampires, ghosts, werewolves) , haunted castles and mansions, isolated setting, violence. , death and the sublime. The aim of this article is to follow and compare the evolution of the vampire from the gothic classics Carmilla (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872) and Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897) to their cinematic adaptations. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Influenced by Polidori's The Vampyre (1819), Carmilla is one of the earliest works of vampire fiction. First serialized in the magazine The Dark Blue (1871-1872)[1] then reprinted by Le Fanu in the collection of short stories In a Glass Darkly (1872), Carmilla is the story of a woman whose sex is important “in the construction of his monstrosity” (Creed 1993, p.3) a vampire named Carmilla (anagram of Mircalla) who feeds on females. Because of its preference for female victims, the novella is often seen as a lesbian vampire story that challenges Victorian ideologies of sexuality "as with all other stereotypes of the feminine [the female monster] is defined in terms of one's sexuality” (Creed 1993, p.3). The story was published in an 1871 issue (December, pp. 434-448) and in three 1872 issues (January, pp. 592-606; February, pp. 701-714; and March, pp. 59- 78). The plot of the short story is easy to follow and makes for entertaining reading: Laura dreams that she was visited by a mysterious figure when she was six years old and remembers being bitten "as if two needles were going very deep in my chest at the same time. » (Le Fanu, 7). Twelve years later, Laura and her English father were supposed to receive a visit from General Spielsdorf and his niece Bertha Rheinfeldt, but Bertha dies under mysterious circumstances which will be clarified later in the short story. While Laura longs for a new companion, a car accident brings Carmilla into the care of Laura and her father. The friendship that develops between them is seen from two angles by researchers: a lesbian attempt coming from Carmilla or a mother-daughter friendship that Laura never had (both motifs are valued in the film adaptations). Meanwhile, young women and girls are dying from an unknown illness and Carmilla is behaving strangely (refusing to attend prayers, sleeping during the day, sleepwalking outside at night, claims that hymns hurt her ears) . In Chapter 7, Laura finds a portrait of her ancestor, Mircalla Countess Karnstein, dated 1698 and observes that Carmilla looks strikingly similar to her. During Carmilla's stay, Laura continues to have nightmares of a large cat-like beast that takes the form of a female. In another nightmare, she sees Carmilla standing at the foot of her bed and hears her say "Your mother warns you to beware of the murderer", then wakes up with her nightgown soaked in blood. His health deteriorates and his father summons the doctor. After examination, the doctor speaks privately with his father and only asks him never to remain unsupervised. On the way to Karnstein, Laura and her father meet General Spielsdorf and start talking about the strange thing that happened to Laura. Then the general told Laura's father that Bertha had the same symptoms when a mysterious Millarca moved in with them for a shortperiod, before dying and explains why Millarca is a vampire and how they can kill her. While locating his grave, the General and Laura were alone in an ancient chapel and Millarca suddenly appeared. The general and Millarca become angry when they see each other. Laura now understands that Millarca and Carmilla are the same person with the General's help. In the final chapter, Laura explains the grotesque techniques of Carmilla's murder that she did not pay attention to and her father sends her to Italy to regain her health, which she never fully does. Therefore, the characteristics of Le Fanu's vampire are: she is female, intelligent, charm, beauty, shape-shifting, vulnerable to sunlight and church-related rituals, sleeps in a coffin and strength, feeds on human blood. The first film adaptation, Byzantium (2012), focuses on the mother-daughter side of the story. In the film, Clara is a prostitute who turned into a vampire by stealing the map that gave the location of a cave that had the power to do such a thing. Taking advantage of the life of darkness, she transforms her daughter (whom she abandoned in an orphanage/Catholic school in order to protect her from such a life, but still provided her with money) and makes her promise not to tell anyone. This is another similarity to the short story: during the ball at the General's residence, Carmilla's mother also forces her to remain silent. Eleanor respects her mother's wish for 200 years, until she feels she can no longer keep the secret. When she meets Frank, a teenager with whom she has fallen in love, she confides in him her secret. At first, Frank tells the high school principal, who calls Clara and ends up being killed by her for finding the truth. But in the end, he begs her to turn him into a vampire too. She does so and her mother frees her. Clara and Eleanor have similar characteristics to Carmilla: they are both beautiful, charming, intelligent (Eleanor more so than her mother), and feed on human blood. However, Eleanor chooses not to pray over ordinary humans, like her mother, but only drinks from elders who are about to die and always asks their permission. The second film adaptation, The Curse of Styria (2014), remains more faithful to the novella. . Lara (and not Laura, as the character in the short story) is the daughter of a former Cambridge professor. They both go to Styria and stay in a castle they rented for a week because his father had to finish his studies. As in the short story, they were waiting for the professor's colleague and Lara's friend, but they didn't get there because they couldn't cross the border. Lara suffers a lot because she can't be with her friend and that's when Carmilla appears in her life, in the same way that Cramilla appeared in Laura's life: following a car accident. In this film, the lesbian side of the short story is emphasized much more than the maternal side, with Carmilla holding Lara's hand when she tricked her into sneaking out and seeing the view and starts with her and even shares some kisses with Lara in the second. half the movie. As in the short story, Carmilla finds funerals pointless and boring. She also feeds on human blood, is charming, beautiful, intelligent and somewhat evil due to her vampire nature. In the neighboring village, girls and young women start behaving strangely and Lara suspects it's because of Carmilla. It turns out she was right and Carmilla was murdered in the same grotesque manner as Carmilla in the short story. Even though the films were completely different from each other, Iconsiders that they both beautifully represented Le Fanu's Carmilla, the kind of vampire that Carmilla was: intelligent, beautiful, mysterious and blood-consuming entity, both maternal and romantic. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) introduces the character of Count Dracula, the classic image of a vampire that everyone has now. The plot is more complex than that of Carmilla because Dracula is one of the first Gothic novels to appear in English literature. The Count is based on Vlad the Impaler (Dracul), vod of Wallachia who later even inspired video game characters (like the Castlevania series). “Who was it but a member of my own race who, as voivode, crossed the Danube and defeated the Turk on his own ground? He really was a Dracula! Woe to him that his own unworthy brother, after his fall, sold his people to the Turks and brought the shame of slavery upon them! Was it not this Dracula, in fact, who inspired that other member of his race who, later, brought his forces again and again across the great river to the land of Turkey; who, when repulsed, returned again and again, even if he had to return alone from the bloody field where his troops were massacred, because he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! (Chapter 3, p. 19). Professor Van Helsing also speculates on the identity of the count: “He must indeed have been that voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, on the great river on the very border of the Turkish country. » (Chapter 18, p. 145). The story is told in epistolary form, diary fragments, newspaper articles and short travelogue notes. Jonathan Harker goes "to the far east of the country, right on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia and Bukovina, in the middle of the Carphatia mountains" (chapter 1, p. 6) to help the count buy properties in the United Kingdom. The path leading to the castle is filled with gothic elements such as wolves, dark forests, the strange circle of blue fire and many more. Soon, Harker realizes that he is Dracula's prisoner and barely escapes alive. Meanwhile, Dracula tracks down Lucy Westerna, Mina Hurray's friend, and communicates with Renfield, a mad patient who hunts insects, birds and rats in order to absorb their "life force". He is the only one who can detect Dracula when he arrives. Lucy begins to waste away suspiciously and Seward (Renfield's doctor) summons his old teacher, Van Helsing. Van Helsing is able to immediately detect Lucy's illness but refuses to acknowledge it and diagnoses her with blood loss. Dr. Seward, Helsing, Quincey, and Arthur (Lucy's fiancé?) all contribute but she still dies. After her death, many children start disappearing and Helsing knows it's Lucy's fault, so he tells the others that she turned into a vampire. They track her down, kill her, decapitate her and fill her mouth with garlic. Around the same time, Jonathan Harker arrives from Budapest, where Mina marries him. Vampire hunters attempt to learn as much as possible about vampires through folk legends and superstitions in order to understand its powers and weaknesses. Mina also plays an important role in this act, collecting relevant data about her from newspapers and magazines. They manage to discover all the properties he bought in London and destroy all his crates with dirt which he needs to be able to walk there (since Dracula can only walk and rest on the land of his homeland ), but they cannot find all the properties he bought in London. boxes because some of them are sent back to Transylvania. After learning of their plans, Dracula attacks Mina and gives her his blood in order to.