#blogging project

[yerutibattilana28]

Blogging Project: Carmilla

3° Entry: The Paradox of Attraction and Repulsion.

1. Queer desire in a repressive world.

Through the main character's impatient curiosity, we soon find out the girl they shelter is indeed, Carmilla, the vampire from years ago. They recognise eachother but seem to have different versions of the same incident. Fate seems to bring these two ladies together, but the protagonist feels just as attracted as scared of her guest, feeling conflicted.

In 19th-century society, sapphic feelings were not only taboo, they were unnameable. So when Carmilla touches her, embraces her, kisses her, then shows apathy towards her, the protagonist melts yet feels abhorrent almost immediately. The love is intoxicating, but society has taught her it's wrong.

Vampires often symbolize the forbidden, the repressed, and being different from the normal human being.

2. Carmilla’s Illness & Cultural Alienness

Carmilla is always tired, faints, and reacts violently to rituals like funerals or hymns. This strangeness works on multiple symbolic levels:

As a vampire: She’s undead, so she’s naturally sickly in sunlight and maybe weakened by religious rites.

As a queer outsider: She doesn't fit in with Styrian society. She has her own customs, ways of speaking, and doesn't explain herself. She refuses to conform, she’s a symbol of hidden female sexuality.

The funeral rage: These might reflect how societal traditions (mourning, religion, family duty) are unbearable or toxic to someone who exists outside of them like a queer woman.

3. The Deaths of Young Women

The girls in the village die after claiming to have seen ghosts or been attacked; just like what nearly happened to the protagonist in the past. And now I realize something so obvious that went right over my head in my last analysis: after her first encounter with the vampire, her father brought a priest and a doctor to medicate her.

This reminds me of that One Direction song that many fans have theorised to be about a homosexual romance. The lyrics say: "...Just me, her and the moon... Love can be frightening for sure... You love who you love there ain't no other way... The priest says it's the devil, my mom says it's the flu, but girl, it's only you..." It perfectly captures how a queer confession has to be made in secret, the moon as their only witness, how scary it is to love someone the same sex as yourself, how religion sees queerness as the devil’s work and how psychiatry or family might label it as an illness.

The deaths after seeing a ghost or being in contact with a vampire feel like a metaphor for society’s punishment of those who step outside the norm. Love becomes a "fever" or a "ghost", something forbidden, misunderstood.

4. The Portrait & Ancestry

A restored portrait in the castle reveals Carmilla (as Mircalla) is around 160 years old and part of the protagonist’s own lineage. This is huge, the theme of haunting inheritance. Carmilla isn’t just an intruder; she’s part of the family, the narrator can't escape her. It could be seen as a metaphor for inherited queerness, a part of the narrator herself that she's just beginning to see and fear.

5. The Dentistry Scene

That weird moment where the man offers to file down Carmilla’s teeth is both ironic and horrifying: It strips away her power. Her sharp teeth are part of her identity, trying to round them is like trying to domesticate her, make her safe, “normal”. It reflects fear of female power or sexuality: Sharpened teeth are a threat, but also a symbol of agency. The idea of dulling them ties into Victorian ideas of taming dangerous women.

6. Love, Fear, and the Moonlight

Carmilla’s romantic confessions, especially under moonlight, are some of the most poignant in early queer literature. She always seems to vanish or weaken just when connection is strongest.

Moonlight as illusion: Their love can only exist in secret, in shadows. The daylight (society, judgment) can't allow it.

The push-pull of forbidden intimacy: Carmilla says "I have been in love with no one, and never shall. Unless it should be with you". It’s passionate, but also isolating. There’s no space for them to exist openly.

So what does all this symbolize?

In one word: Paradox.

Carmilla is both lover and predator. The narrator feels both desire and terror. Their relationship is tender but doomed. The vampire is dead yet at the same time alive.

It’s a deeply queer Gothic tale: a story about a love that can’t name itself, can’t thrive in the light, and must live in whispers and haunted bedrooms. Carmilla’s refusal to explain herself is powerful, because she doesn’t have to. She just is. She embodies mystery, longing, and danger.

[grison-in-space]

anyway, if there's a throughline for today's writing, it's simply this: we are learning creatures.

I got an okay enthusiastic support from my mentor to prioritize writing a weekly longform blog again, which is a project I've been talking about for some time and not actually getting on. I'm gonna go work on ideas for the first couple of posts as soon as I put on pants, but in the meantime...

well, learning creatures wouldn't be the worst title I ever came out with. I've been sitting on taproot as a blog name for like ten years but regrettably my personal line of work has utterly failed to get anywhere near plants for the intervening decade.

we'll see. I want a couple posts in backlog first, so I have time to think of good names.

[yerutibattilana28]

Blogging Project: Carmilla.

2° Entry: My Takes on the Characters.

1. Subtle Foreshadowing.

The people who live in the castle match the place: quiet, kind, but marked by grief. The father is an English gentleman, refined and affectionate. He quotes Shakespeare, which immediately makes everything feel like foreshadowing; because of course, Shakespeare means drama, longing, love, madness, death. The mother, Styrian, is long dead.

2. Curious as a Feline.

The main character and narrator is their daughter, nineteen, sheltered, and clearly adored by everyone. She has two governesses: one soft and motherly, the other elegant and more polished. They take care of her like she’s a fragile thing, and she kind of is. She’s sensitive, curious, dreamy, and feels very lonely.

She was longing for companionship when she learned the visit she’s been waiting for had died just before traveling. She got so disappointed and seeing an opportunity to acquire a new friend she begs her father to shelter the girl who fell unconscious in the carriage accident near the castle.

Our main character just wants a friend, but I can’t shake the feeling that this girl is too beautiful to be good; just like the vampire from her childhood.

3. Was it Fate?

There’s no way the accident happened right there by chance, not in the middle of a forest, near a castle so far from everything. That whole scene feels like it was meant to happen. The woman who comes out of the wreck is described with so much beauty and detail. And then there’s the mysterious black woman with deformed teeth who didn’t get out of the carriage at all. There’s something chilling about her, something off.

Why did the lady leave her daughter for three entire months with strangers just because they offered shelter? Where was she going in such a hurry that she couldn't wait for her own daughter to recover from the shock of the accident? So many questions that apparently, will stay unanswered.

4. Everything Hints at More.

She whispers that her daughter has a mysterious illness (just like Lady Bertha Spieldorf who died under strange circumstances) and claims she won’t speak a word about who they are, where they're from or anything of that matter. It’s shady. And if I'm not mistaken, General Spieldorf also mentioned in his letter he would pay them a visit in about three months if he survives some kind of quest after discovering the actual reason of his niece's passing (which remains a mystery to both the main characters and us readers).

Everything about that moment gives off the feeling that something bigger and darker is unfolding right under everyone’s nose.

Illustration by D.H. Friston from the first edition of Carmilla, published in The Dark Blue in 1872.

[yerutibattilana28]

Blog Project: Carmilla 6° Entry: The Haunting Ends, But the Memory Lingers. Final Reflections.

1. The Fog Lifts

As Carmilla nears its end, secrets are uncovered.

From page 100 onward, all the pieces fall into place. Laura and her father, along with the General and a team of investigators uncover Carmilla’s crypt beneath the ruined chapel of Karnstein. They learn her real identity: Countess Mircalla Karnstein, a noblewoman who died centuries ago and has continued to prey upon girls like Laura and Bertha ever since.

2. A Beautiful Revenant

When they find her body, it's horrifyingly pristine. She appears to be merely sleeping, her beauty untouched by time. The act of driving a stake through her heart and beheading her feels almost sacrilegious, not just because of the violence, but because of the intimacy that came before it.

Carmilla wasn’t some hideous monster. She was someone Laura loved, someone who kissed her, whispered to her in the night, and touched her soul, even as she fed on her life.f

3. The Haunting Aftermath

But what’s perhaps more haunting than Carmilla’s death is Laura’s voice after it. She survives, yes, but she does not rejoice.

Laura narrates with a kind of quiet devastation, she admits that the memories never leave her. She’s not grateful, she’s not relieved. There’s no triumph in Carmilla’s destruction, only loss, confusion and grief. Even when the vampire is gone, the longing remains.

“I live in constant dread of some recurrence of the astounding horror of the past.” (LeFanu, 108).

This ending isn’t clean. It’s not cathartic. Instead, it reflects something deeply real about trauma and about love that isn’t fully understood. Carmilla wasn't just a vampire. She was a woman who loved Laura in a world that had no language for that kind of love, and no mercy for its expression.

4. Final Themes and Thoughts

Love as Haunting: Laura isn’t just haunted by the horror, she’s haunted by the love. Carmilla’s affection was as dangerous as real.

Queerness and Otherness: Carmilla is destroyed by institutional forces: the General (military power), the priest (religious power), and Baron Vordenburg (hereditary scholarly authority).

We could interpret that together they form a patriarchal system that condemns her seduction, her refusal to conform and her refusal to die when she was supposed to, over a century ago(just like queerness). Carmilla is not just a vampire, but a woman whose difference could not be tolerated.

The End Is Not an Ending: The final image is not one of closure but of uncertainty. Laura never fully recovers. And neither do we.

5. The Tragedy of Romance

Reading Carmilla from beginning to end, what stays with me isn’t the horror, though it’s masterfully done. It’s the love, and the way it’s both cherished and condemned. Carmilla’s story is a gothic tragedy disguised as a vampire tale or perhaps it’s the other way around. And in Laura’s lonely voice at the end, we hear what’s left behind, a beautiful wound.

Carmilla and Laura illustrated by D.H. Friston from The Dark Blue

📚Works Cited:

Le Fanu, J. Sheridan. Carmilla. 1872.

[yerutibattilana28]

# Blog Entry 5: Jekyll's Confession

The final chapters contain Dr. Jekyll's confession, which finally explains everything. Through a scientific potion, Jekyll transformed himself into Hyde, creating a separate physical form for the darker aspects of his personality. At first, he enjoyed the freedom Hyde provided. He could act without concern for social expectations. However, the freedom quickly became uncontrollable.

Jekyll explains that eventually, transformations began occurring without the potion. This is important because it demonstrates how repeated immoral behavior can become a habit. The more Jekyll embraced Hyde, the less control he had over his own identity.

The suffering caused by Hyde's crimes did not disappear simply because another name was attached to them. After all they still came from Dr. Jekyll's impulses. The author reminds readers that actions always have consequences, regardless of how we justify them.

Macauley, Charles Raymond. Illustration from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "Solely occupied by one thought-the horror of my other self ". 1904 edition, Scott-Thaw Company, 1904.

After finishing the novel, I believe that the lesson is that we must recognize our flaws and take responsibility for our actions rather than pretending they belong to someone else. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde remains relevant because it explores a struggle that still exists within human nature today.

[yerutibattilana28]

# Blog Entry 4: The Truth Begins to Surface.

The tension increases as Poole seeks Utterson's help. He thinks something terrible has happened inside Jekyll's laboratory. The atmosphere in these chapters is intensely sinister. Fear and uncertainty dominate every moment.

The apparent solution only creates more questions, when Utterson and Poole finally break into the laboratory they discover Hyde's body lying on the floor and Dr. Jekyll has disappeared.

Macauley, Charles Raymond. Illustration from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "Poole and Utterson break into Dr. Jekyll's laboratory". 1904 edition, Scott-Thaw Company, 1904.

The documents left behind reveal that Jekyll's experiments involved more than ordinary science. His desire to separate the good and evil parts of human nature led him into dangerous territory. Instead of controlling his darker side, he gave it freedom and what began as curiosity eventually became an addiction as Hyde grew stronger than Jekyll...

[yerutibattilana28]

# Blog Entry 3: The Return of Hyde

After Hyde disappears following the murder, Dr. Jekyll seems transformed. He reconnects with friends, attends social gatherings, and appears happier than before. For a brief period, it seems as though he has escaped whatever influence Mr. Hyde had over him. Utterson feels relieved, yet the atmosphere of the novel suggests that the peace will not last.

Soon, strange events begin occurring again. Dr. Lanyon, a close friend of Dr. Jekyll, experiences a terrible shock that changes him completely. He refuses to discuss what happened and becomes seriously ill, his decline introduces a new layer of mystery. Whatever secret Jekyll is hiding appears powerful enough to destroy not only himself but also those who learn the truth.

Macauley, Charles Raymond. Illustration from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "Dr. Lanyon.". 1904 edition, Scott-Thaw Company, 1904.

Dr. Jekyll withdraws from society and locks himself away again. The respectable doctor who once enjoyed friendship and admiration now lives in fear. The contrast between Jekyll and Hyde is dramatic. One seeks acceptance and respect, while the other pursues selfish pleasure without limits.

Perhaps Hyde is not an outside force but a part of Jekyll that he refuses to acknowledge. A lot of people try to divide themselves into "good" and "bad" parts, pretending that their darker thoughts belong to someone else. Stevenson seems to suggest that such separation is impossible. The parts of ourselves we ignore often return stronger than before.