Queer Themes

Despite the relative newness of queer theory, and analyzing texts beyond conventional gender and orientation subsets, queer characters have been around for a very long time. In looking at queerness in literature the idea is that it is more than just assessing how a character fits in the queer spectrum, but also the cultural statements and implications made through the use of queer characters. In an interview with the New York Times, Eve Kosofsky Sedwick states that, “It’s about trying to understand different kinds of sexual desire and how the culture defines them,” (qtd. in New York Times). While queer themes are persistent among a variety of genres, the horror genre seems to draw the most intense examples of characters and motifs involving queerness. Somehow the analysis and metaphors of queerness become more stark, …show more content…
All of these stories belong in the subset horror genre, but for the most part the similarities begin and end there. Let The Right One In is a modern tale about a young, tormented boy named Oskar who inadvertently becomes close friends with an androgynous vampire named Eli. Throughout the tale, Eli both terrorizes the community and becomes a savior figure for Oskar. On the other side, the story Carmilla is about a female vampire who befriends, seduces, and essentially uses the narrator Laura. The narrative of Carmilla implies that while the narrator, Laura, in hindsight sees Carmilla as a monster; there is still a sense of tenderness at the love bond that they shared. The Picture of Dorian Gray revolves around the love triangle of two opposing forces over a young and impressionable man, and in the process the young man becomes the stories monster. There are no vampires in The Picture of Dorian Gray, but the themes within the story parallel many of the themes that vampirism brings to