Carmilla

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Illustration by DH Friston in The Dark Blue magazine , 1872

Carmilla is a novella by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu , published in 1872 , which tells the story of a young woman's encounter with a female vampire named Carmilla. The text first appeared in three parts between January and March 1872 in The Dark Blue magazine and later that year in the anthology In a Glass Darkly edited by Le Fanu . The publication in The Dark Blue included illustrations by M. Fitzgerald and DH Friston that were not included in the book edition because they did not directly relate to the content of the story.

action

Illustration by DH Friston, 1872

A rich, English widower who used to work in Austria lives with his daughter Laura at "Schloss Karnburg" in Styria . At the age of six, Laura saw a beautiful creature in her bedroom at night and was bitten in the chest by it, but there was no trace of it later.

Twelve years later, Laura's father receives a letter from an old friend, General Spielsdorf, who cancels an announced visit with his niece, because she suddenly died under strange circumstances. Laura is sad because she feels lonely in the castle and would have liked to have a mate. A short time later, a carriage accident brings a companion by the name of Carmilla into her house. Since the young girl seems injured, but her mother pretends that the journey cannot be delayed, her daughter is to remain in the care of the castle's family for three months. Before continuing the journey, the stranger assures that her daughter is sane, but that she will not disclose any information about herself, her family, her origins or her past.

The funeral , illustration by Michael Fitzgerald in The Dark Blue , 1872

In a conversation Laura learns that Carmilla had the same dream as her when she was a child. This similarity leads to the fact that the two girls become close friends, even if Carmilla does not allow herself to be misled by questions to tell Laura more about herself. However, Carmilla's sudden mood swings and her romantic turn to Laura are striking. She walks in her sleep and therefore sleeps a lot during the day. Likewise, her aversion to Christian customs - she gets angry when Laura joins the songs in the face of a funeral procession - affects them strangely. It is strange that Carmilla - as an old family portrait shows - is exactly like one of Laura's ancestors, Countess Mircalla Karnstein; the resemblance even extends to the birthmark on her neck.

During Carmilla's stay, Laura has nightmares again : this time of a big, diabolical cat that bites her chest at night, then transforms into a woman and leaves the room through the window without opening it. The called doctor cannot name a disease, but gives the advice never to leave the girl unsupervised.

To distract her, her father takes her on a trip to the village of Karnstein. Since Carmilla is still asleep, they leave a message asking her to follow up with a governess when she wakes up. On the way to Karnstein, they run into General Spielsdorf who tells them his own eerie story. At a costume ball he met a young girl named Millarca and her mysterious mother, and his niece was so taken with the girl that they invited them for three months, especially since the mother had been able to convince him that they are old friends. During the stay, his niece fell ill and had the same strange symptoms that Laura now has. The Dr. Hesselius was sure that his niece was being haunted by a vampire. Thereupon he hid himself armed with a sword in a closet in their bedroom and saw a feline creature sneak through their room and bite his niece on the neck. When he attacked the creature, it took the form of Millarca and disappeared through the locked door. Immediately afterwards his niece died.

When he arrived in Karnstein, Spielsdorf turned to the forester to find out where he could find the grave of Mircalla Karnstein. He wants to cut off her head, because that's the only way the nightmare will end. The forester reports that the man who long ago defeated the vampire moved the grave and only his master knows where to find it. Carmilla appears while the general is waiting with Laura in the abandoned chapel. When she sees Spielsdorf, she attacks him. The general defends himself with an ax and drives it away. He explains to Laura that "Carmilla" is an anagram of "Millarca" and that one is dealing with the resurrected vampire, Countess Karnstein.

The story ends with the opening of the grave and the destruction of the vampire. Laura suffers a trauma from this .

meaning

The title character Carmilla is considered to be the prototype of a long line of female, including lesbian vampires, even if - due to the customs of the time - Le Fanu does not clearly name her sexuality. Nevertheless, the indications (for example the preference of female victims) are clear. There are also some characteristics of the "modern vampire": the ability to walk through walls, the transformation into an animal and the sleep in the coffin. In other respects she differs from the now distinctive type: Although Carmilla prefers the night, she does not need to protect herself from the sun. Also their animal alter ego is not the bat, but the cat.

effect

History has had an influence on Bram Stoker that should not be underestimated . His first draft for Dracula is also set in Styria; only later did Stoker move the action to Transylvania. The narrative perspective of the first person singular, which allows the reader to discover the secret of the story together with the narrator, is the same in both stories. There are also parallels in the characters involved, for example between Hesselius and Van Helsing (natural scientists with metaphysical interests) or between Carmilla and Lucy Westenra (appearance, sleepwalking ).

In 1987 Elfriede Jelinek published her play Illness or Modern Women , in which a female figure named Carmilla appears and in the course of the play is bitten by a lesbian vampire and thus transformed.

Dubbing

In 1984, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, directed by Heinz-Wilhelm Schwarz, set the story of the most famous female vampire figure in literary history to music in a 51-minute radio play version. Carmilla was voiced by Nina Danzeisen and Laura by Sona McDonald. In 1995, in a joint production by the Süddeutscher Rundfunk and Südwestfunk, another radio play was also made under the title "Carmilla". Eduard Hermann directed the 73-minute setting.

In 2003, a 61-minute radio play version by Olaf Seidler and Bergit Lasar was published in the series The Black Hour on Radio Play World. In its series of horrors , the label “Titania Medien” released the subject in 2004 as a 77-minute radio play, dramatized by Marc Gruppe.

"Carmilla" was also implemented several times for the English-language radio. On July 31, 1975, a radio play setting of this classic vampire story was broadcast as part of the CBS Radio Mystery Theater . CBC Radio broadcast another English-language adaptation of the topic in the series Nightfall on November 20, 1981.

Film adaptations (selection)

Several vampire films were also made based on the plot of Carmilla :

Dramatization

In 1994 Ulrike and Friedhelm Schneidewind wrote and staged a theatrical version, which was staged by the Studio-Theater Saarbrücken and had around 60 performances until 1999, including in 1997 and 1998 at the Leipzig Schauspielhaus at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen, in Georgia in 1995 and in Transylvania during a tour of Romania in 1996 In 1997 the play was performed by the “Bretthupferl” theater in Pforzheim, and in 2007 by the “Theater Akteur” in Mechernich. In 2016 the Swiss-German theatrical version "Carmilla - a Gothic Lovestory" will be written and directed by Hugo Kropf and premiered by the SpiegelBühne in Spiegel near Bern.

Web links

Commons : Carmilla  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

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