Carmilla Jane Eyre

The Victorian era was marked by an aggressive belief in the purity of women. Queen Victoria herself, the most powerful matriarch of the time, perpetuated the image of a docile, submissive woman serving as the perfect help-meet for her husband. Women were viewed as “angels of the house” and anything that failed to fit this ideal image was shamed into censure. The most notorious killer of the time, Jack the Ripper, chose prostitutes as his victims, women of ‘sin’. Fear and vitriol for the minority persists to this day, exemplified by the continued exclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals from the mainstream. Carmilla, by J.S. Le Fanu, dares to challenge the expectations for female relationships of the era and surreptitiously attacks the concept of patriarchal

Each work focuses on the female search for liberation; Anna through sex, and Jane money. However, the feminist figure of note in Jane Eyre is not Jane herself, but Bertha Mason, the mentally ill wife of Mr. Rochester. Bertha is stripped of her autonomy and literally confined in her husband’s attic for defying Victorian expectations. Rather than the “angel of the house,” she becomes the demon. Bertha ultimately dies by suicide, like Carmilla, for her deviance from Victorian standards. Strive as she might for liberation, the circumstances of the time call for the death of anything qualifying as

According to Baron Vordenburg, “a suicide, under certain circumstances, becomes a vampire,” suggesting Carmilla’s death was by her own hand, perhaps prompted, similarly to Bertha Mason, by her inability to conform to Victorian expectations. Language Vordenburg utilizes implies an unhealthy obsession with Carmilla rather than a requited love. Baron Vordenburg describes his ancestor as “a passionate and favored over of the beautiful Mircalla,” and her death, that of his “idol,” enough to “[plunge] him into inconsolable grief” Each statement objectifies Carmilla and suggests that her only purpose in life was to exist for the pleasure of her suitors (Le Fanu, Chapter 16). The Baron’s ancestor does not truly mourn Carmilla, but the pedestalized version he constructed. Conversely, in Carmilla and Laura’s relationship, there is an honest, requited passion that humanizes Carmilla and reminds the reader that the idea of good and evil is a false