Le Fanu Carmilla Theme

Le Fanu’s story of Carmilla has been adapted as a web series, in which the setting is modern day society at a college campus. Laura remains the narrator of the thirty-six-episode season, where she records all of the events from her dorm room as part of her journalism class. The web series stays loyal to Carmilla reprising the role of the female vampire in the story, while also implying other female romantic relationships. In the short story Le Fanu’s choice of using a female vampire oppose to a male alters the way in which the audience reads the relationship between Carmilla and Laura. The female relationship is questioned, particularly because there is a romantic and sensual relationship that develops between them. The female desire between …show more content…
The fear that she feels from them can be interpreted as a fear of what society will think if she had a romantic relationship with another woman, because there was an ingrained idea of what was right and wrong in Le Fanu’s society. The relationship between Carmilla and Laura exude a sense of patriarchy, through the masculine characteristics Carmilla displays that prove her own independence and power over Laura. Their relationship reveals that although they are both females, there is still a power dynamic in which one is superior to the other. Le Fanu’s association of the fear of the vampire and the idea of female desire and sexuality are threatening to society in which men will seek destroy. This is established by the male character’s objective to kill Carmilla at the end of the …show more content…
In the beginning it appears that Laura and her teaching assistant Danny have a flirtatious relationship, where Danny clearly has feelings for Laura and is overprotected when Carmilla becomes her roommate. Danny reflects many masculine characteristics because she is dominant and protective over Laura, and in episode twenty-four Laura explains that although she likes Danny she could not be in a relationship where Danny has a dominant position over her. The relationship between Carmilla and Laura gradually escalates through the episodes. In episode seventeen Carmilla makes romantic advances towards Laura, who assumes that it is just part of her seduction act to prey upon her. Although a real romantic relationship develops between Laura and Carmilla when Carmilla reveals her past lover Ell, and how her mother took her away from Carmilla. Laura and Carmilla’s relationship does not appear to have any power struggle between the two females, both women are accepting of each other as individuals. Compared to the short story, the fact that Carmilla is a vampire does not play a factor in Laura’s feelings towards her, which suggests that the adaptation does not see homosexuality as divergent of social norms. At the end of the season all of the main characters survive including Carmilla, which suggests that female desire is embraced during this time. This version of the