Interview with the Vampire

The vampire, once feared to be a real being, is now a rather popular and fictitious character for many mediums of entertainment. More recently, the series Twilight comes to mind; although the books and films are questionably “good,” there is no denying the fascination that people have held for vampires. Perhaps the vampire genre is not nearly as trendy as it was during the release of the Twilight films, it would be of little surprise that another famous fictional vampire was to emerge within the next few years. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a remarkably popular show in its duration. The show was also critically acclaimed by audiences and critics alike. And in the 1970s, the novel Interview with the Vampire seems to be the Twilight of today’s time and Buffy of ten years go.

Interview with the Vampire, written by Anne Rice, is perhaps one of the more popular modern Gothic novels today. The story takes on an interesting viewpoint of the main character, Louis de Pointe du Lac, who is himself a vampire. In the vain of Twilight however, the novel portrays a more sympathetic insight into the life of a vampire and his moral struggles. This is an interesting contrast to the vampires narrated in folklore, who are often depicted as evil and ruthless beings. Rice romanticizes the vampires in her book to the point where they are not only seen as thoughtful individuals, but desirable to mortals as well.

This is not to say that the vampires in her novel are all morally sound. Pointe du Lac suffers from the same flaws as any mortal man – but the story introduces us to her more sinister characters, such as Lestat, an incredibly cold and manipulative vampire who gains satisfaction from the derivement of others. Interestingly enough, Lestat seems be an an incredibly popular character to fans. Perhaps people are more intrigued by the “bad boy,” even if the “bad boy” is a murderer.