English Literature

Anne Rice has been a prolific writer since 1976, with her first book of the Vampire Chronicles, Interview with a Vampire.  The book written initially as a therapeutic measure to the loss of her daughter, however, more than therapy and mourning came from this manuscript (Benefiel 6).  From that first novel until the most recent Blood Canticle Rice has changed the way in which the literary world and the public look at vampires and understand those underlying themes that are essential in modern vampire novels.  Rice wrote more than just vampire novels.  She incorporated a series of witches Mayfair Witch series, as well as an erotic tale of Sleeping Beauty.  However, it is the vampires of which she writes that influenced the world.  The influences evolved over time and through each book, but the basic themes remained the same, family, sexuality, morality and feminism (Belsey 687 Benefiel 8 Doane  Hodges 422 Haggerty 7 Rout).  She shed new light on each of these themes in the contrast of the world at the time of the writing of each novel.  Therefore, as the times changed, so did her use and descriptions of these themes, which led to the evolution of her influence on society.

The first aspect of society found in Rices works is her look at the nuclear or normal family.  Based on the guidelines set by the United States government the only true family structure that is normal is the man, woman, and children family unit (Benefiel 6).  If the family unit is not made up in this like, then it is not a true family and cannot function or remain a family for very long.  However, the truth of this is unfounded.  The majority of families are not structurally predisposed to this framework, but are of other types of units (Benefiel 6).  The family of Lestat, Louis, and Claudia is far from the ideal American normal family, and yet it lasts for approximately 65 years, which is much longer than the normal American family survives intact (Benefiel 7 Besley 685 Doane et al 434 Haggerty 11).

There are undertones of the making of Claudia that are similar to a male-female family having children to save their marriage. Some scholars believe that LeStat made Claudia to keep Louis, and he may well have done just that (Benefiel 6).  Unfortunately or rather as normal families evolve and change this vampire family does eventually dismantle, it is only because of the psychological changes and maturing of Claudia and the changes in the personality of Louis (Benefiel 12). One can also see this dismantling through the view of Claudia as a teenager who is trying to understand her own life, and yet she is only aged physically to six.  This is of itself a mess, but one that she feels can be rectified by including Madeline into their family for her (Benefiel 8). In all of these cases, the characters play out real life versions of their characters.  Not as in a real person, but in the actions of specific types of people. One could even see this unnatural family to be dysfunctional however, the ways in which the characters deal with one another is retrospective of how the mother, father and children deal with one another in normal households as the family evolves (Benefiel 6 Besley 685 Doane et al 429 Haggerty 17).  Rice is not the first to give vampires a family, but she is the first to give them the human feelings that are often shown in families and thereby shows the public what they are afraid to see, or those types of families that are considered dysfunctional and yet last.

Another feature of many of Rices works is the need to ignore gender and watch the world of her works through androgynous eyes and in general terms of sexuality.  Of course there are male characters and female characters, but the fact remains that they are not always assuming the expected gender roles.  The fact is made clear when Lestat makes Louis, at the time he can be viewed as mother, father, and lover, which leads to not only homosexual undertones, but incestual as well (Doane et al 429 Haggerty 9 Rout ).  The vampire sexual nature comes not just from the human sense of gender, but from the overall sense of companionship and the need to love one another.  George Haggerty in his article Anne Rice and the queering of culture (1998) discusses this point, and in fact states that the characters in Rices novels were definitively gay. Others however, view the sexuality differently, in that each vampire is both male and female and thereby, have no sex in the human sense.  They have only desires and find the most attractive person to fulfill those desires (Benefiel 8 Besley 686 Doane et al 429 Haggerty 9).  To the vampire desire is based on the need to feed and not the need for sex, thereby creating a world that revolves around food and not the physical elements of sex and gender.

Focusing only on the family and sexuality of vampire, the concept of morality must be discussed.  Morality to a vampire would seem like an oxymoron, when in reality, or at least within the fictional reality of the novel, morality is inherent within the storylines and history.  For example, in Interview with a Vampire it is discovered that to change someone as young as Claudia is not acceptable in the world of the vampires.  Another example is the fact that many of the later novels of the Vampire Chronicles show that the oldest of the vampires, like Marius, decide that they should only hunt the Evil Doer thereby changing their role from murderers to champions of the human world.  They focus on dispersing with those that hurt innocent humans, which includes the destruction of vampires that do not follow this moralistic law (Belsey 699 Rout). Morality in fact, is a major theme in the later novels and even Lestat believes in the new morality and follows it.

While Anne Rice is most famous for her Vampire Chronicles it is not the only series in which she uses these same themes to influence society.  The Mayfair Witch Chronicles also delve into many of these same topics, but from human stand points instead of preternatural characters.  The humans in this series, mainly Rowan Mayfair, believe that they can control a being, which of course she can not.  However to get to the point, she gives up her new husband, and therefore gives up the beginnings of her new normal American family.  The sexuality of young Mona overwhelms most of the other events in several of the books, because many of her liaisons are with cousins, and older men.  The morality falls apart as the demon and his consort are born and leave to reproduce (Rout ).  This is just a quick overview, but one can see how these same themes can be found in this series as well.

Even with all of the understanding of society through the Vampire Chronicles, the biggest opponent to the chronicles and the literary canon of the chronicles is the author herself.  In recent years, Rice has changed her view on life.  She has left New Orleans, and moved to California and embarked on a new aspect of her life that is focused on Christian themes of all her new work.  In a September 2009 message on her website she states that I can not be Lestat again (Rice).  Earlier messages refuse to entertain the possibility of even writing in the modern fictional genre.  She states My present focus has to be on my novels about the life of Jesus Christ and I do not want to revisit the realm of my earlier books (Rice). It is said that one is ones worse enemy, and in the works of Anne Rice, it would seem that she has removed herself from the literary canon that made her a household name.

However, she is not alone.  Catherine Besley in her article Postmodern Love Questioning the Metaphysics of Desire has shown that Rice has romanticized the vampire beyond what should be reasonable.  They are sexy and motivated, and beautiful.  They are everything the average person in the world wants to be.  It is this that makes one realize that Rice may have taken the story line too far with her Lestat, traveling in time and to heaven and hell in Memnoch the Devil.  However, if Rice did not take the stand, another writer would have, and possibly romanticized something worse. Therefore, Besley believes one should read Rice with caution and should not be taken too literally (697).

The fact is that Anne Rice, through all her work, should remain a major player in the literary canon of today.  For the last forty years she has brought many of the societal woes to the publics eye and made the public deal with their phobias and fears especially of the unknown and the subcultures of the modern society, such as the marginalized homosexual and Goth cultures of society.  It is not so much that she is pushing their agendas, but she is making it understood that there is more to life than what some group of people believe, for example the belief of the normal American family.  She shows that there is more than one way in which to live and live happily.  She shows that sexuality has nothing to do with the outward appearance and life of someone and should not be used to judge others.  In her work she also emphasizes that while each person fits into some cultural category, the real truth is that each person is an individual and those beliefs and feelings are just as legitimate as anyone elses beliefs and feelings.  No one should be afraid to be themselves as long as they abide by the rules and live an honest life.