"Gothic's Enigmatic Signifier: The Case of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla'"

“Gothic’s Enigmatic Signifier: The Case of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’” by Michael Davis brought up some interesting points of view for me. To be honest, the first few pages I found myself glazing over while attempting to absorb what I could from the reading. A little ways in, however, I started having a much easier time understanding what the author was conveying. After I was able to fully launch myself into the paper, I found that Davis makes quite a few interesting points and presents theories about the novella that I had not considered. The topic he brings up that really caught my eye was that of the absence of Laura’s mother- which I will be focusing on in this blog.

In this article, Davis’s zeroing in on the absence of Laura’s mother and how this effects the story opened my eyes to the possibilities Le Fanu leaves for speculation. Without a mother in her life, Laura unknowingly has a void that Carmilla uses to her advantage. Carmilla attempts to gain favor with Laura at first, through presenting herself as that loving, maternal link Laura is missing. Although Laura has been brought up by Madame Peredon, who supplies her with a mother-like substitute, Davis theorizes that Laura does indeed subconsciously remembers the actual bonded relationship with her mother and is missing it. I liked the quote from the story that Davis uses to introduce the reader to Carmilla’s first attempts at gaining Laura’s devotion and trust in a maternal way, which was:

“Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and soothed my resistance into a trance, from which I only seemed to recover myself when she withdrew her arms.”

Here, Carmilla is tapping into Laura’s weaknesses by exploiting her lack of a mother. Carmilla easily can see that this is a good tactic to magnetize herself to these girls, as we also learned how she bewitches General Spielsdorf’s niece, who is also mother-less.

Davis continues the subject by suggesting that by presenting herself as a motherly figure, Carmilla is able to broach the loving, soothing side as well as the darker and more fearful aspects of the relationships. By showing herself as this figure the girls have been longing for- one who will provide them with such an enthralling and captivating array of emotions that they had never experienced- the comfort and deep attachments- Carmilla is able to expose them to her strange and troubling traits, that would normally scare anyone away. Because the girls are so drawn to the positive, they are able to overlook the negative. This is a method Davis describes as “good mother” or “bad mother” when he writes,

“The ambivalence Laura experiences towards ‘the demonic shadow mother’ is, as I have already suggested, the result of a split between that which she comprehends, the soothing caresses of the ‘good’ mother or ‘good’ breast, and that which, untranslated, sinks into the unconscious to remain there as an ‘encysted’, troubling and potentially traumatic enigma- the other side of the split: the ‘bad’ mother or ‘bad’ breast."

Going along with the importance of a maternal theme in the story, Davis also makes a note of mentioning the opposite, paternal relationship factors towards the end of the article. I liked how he tied this factor in, as I think it does deserve a mention. Here, Le Fanu depicts Laura’s father and General Speilsdorf as being somewhat typical male characters- strongly devoted and protective. Although they tried with all of their physical might to protect their daughters (or niece in General Spielsdorf’s case) they were not able to protect them emotionally. Obviously- Bertha did not survive the encounter with Carmilla at all, so General Spielsdorf’s efforts were in vain, but he was able to fulfill his goal of “avenging” her death by bringing an end to the threat of the vampires. Laura’s father was able to help in the assassination of Millarca, but the emotional trauma Laura experienced will remain with her forever, regardless of any protection her father yearns to provide her with.

All in all, although, as mentioned earlier, I found the article hard to muster through at the very beginning, I ultimately ended up engrossed in it and all the theories that Davis presented. I enjoyed how his writing got me to think more analytically and to put more into dissecting the story and asking “why?” This allowed me to start making connections that I would not have made otherwise.