"Sweetly die - into mine": Trusselen mot Subjektivitet og den Abjekte Moren i Le Fanus Carmilla.

Abstract

A source of fear which often has been ignored or forgotten is the threat of the abject, blurring the border of a person’s subjectivity. It is a fear connected with the vampire because, same as the abject, it is difficult to categorize, moving across borders of desire and fear, life and death, known and unknown. The vampire can be read as the abject mother, who continues to hold on to the child, not allowing the child to distinguish the border of their subjectivity. The aim of this thesis is to examine how the abject is portrayed through the vampire Carmilla, threatening Laura’s development of her identity because she denies Laura’s release from the abject mother. Le Fanu’s portrayal of the vampire, Carmilla’s characterization of desire and Laura’s ambiguous feelings towards the vampire shows how the vampire can be interpreted as the abject mother, threatening the victim with the dissolvement of subjectivity in order to protect itself from the abject. In other terms, Laura’s possible death and transformation into a vampire is the subject trying to protect itself from the abject. Which also could be read as the abject mother trying to continue the symbolic merging between mother and child through dissolvement of subjectivity.

A source of fear which often has been ignored or forgotten is the threat of the abject, blurring the border of a person’s subjectivity. It is a fear connected with the vampire because, same as the abject, it is difficult to categorize, moving across borders of desire and fear, life and death, known and unknown. The vampire can be read as the abject mother, who continues to hold on to the child, not allowing the child to distinguish the border of their subjectivity. The aim of this thesis is to examine how the abject is portrayed through the vampire Carmilla, threatening Laura’s development of her identity because she denies Laura’s release from the abject mother. Le Fanu’s portrayal of the vampire, Carmilla’s characterization of desire and Laura’s ambiguous feelings towards the vampire shows how the vampire can be interpreted as the abject mother, threatening the victim with the dissolvement of subjectivity in order to protect itself from the abject. In other terms, Laura’s possible death and transformation into a vampire is the subject trying to protect itself from the abject. Which also could be read as the abject mother trying to continue the symbolic merging between mother and child through dissolvement of subjectivity.