Interview With a Vampire: A Portrayal of Vampire Relationships

The relationship's portrayed in Anne Rice's Interview With a Vampire are that of subliminal plotlines stemming from the lack of a relationship for the novels pornographic author, intimacy and a (heavy) dash of patriarchal values. Frankly a thesis that would make my mother wonder what exactly they're teaching at art school.
The interaction between the vampires in Interview With a Vampire comes from a place of seeking intimacy in a nontraditional way. Anne Rice was known for her...promiscuous...writing before Interview With a Vampire, but having gone through a traumatic life event which led to the lack of communication between Rice and her husband. Rice used her experience to shine a light on intimacy through communication. Sex is not the end-all be-all of intimacy for the vampires, described as being “a minute feeling of the kill”. This sense of intimacy panders to a female audience, and as anti-establishment as I hope to be against novels written “for women” it totally worked and I found solace in the vampires wordy intimate ways.
The patriarchal values within Interview With a Vampire held my interest through the entirety of the novel. Having a strong stance against the patriarchy, I was ready to be displeased by the notion. However, to my surprise, I was delighted with some of the elements that coincide with the heavy patriarchal undertones, specifically how sexuality and gender identity don’t matter as much to the vampires, and how Claudia manipulates Louis’s feelings of responsibility to her. The androgyny of the male vampires was refreshing, and Claudia’s power over Louis was, while coming from a place of wrong-doing, somehow glorious.

I have without a doubt touched upon the “big issues” Rice took on within the novel, I will leave Capitalism alone for now…the promiscuity this novel demands you to pay attention to alone is enough to stop me in my tracks. Overall I really enjoyed the novel and was upset to see it turn into a different kind of “porn for women” in the film adaptation.

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