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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations
The Graduate School
2009
The Vampire in the Poetry of Delmira
Agustini
Stephanie E. Balmori
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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
THE VAMPIRE IN THE POETRY OF DELMIRA AGUSTINI
By
STEPHANIE E. BALMORI
A Thesis submitted to the
Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
Degree Awarded:
Spring Semester, 2009
The members of the Committee approve the Thesis of Stephanie Balmori defended on
March 5, 2009.
________________________
Delia Poey
Professor Directing Thesis
________________________
Brenda Cappuccio
Committee Member
________________________
Roberto G. Fernández
Committee Member
Approved:
_____________________________________________
William J. Cloonan, Chair, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
_____________________________________________
Joseph Travis, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above named committee
members.
ii
To my husband Fabian and our son, Leonardo Julián Balmori.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To begin, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my professors at Florida State
University for their contributions that made this work possible. Many thanks are due to
Delia Poey who helped to narrow my subject focus and refine my essay writing style
during her Spanish-American Women Writers class, and who later graciously agreed to
sign on as Major Professor of this project. Special thanks are also due to Brenda
Cappuccio who not only kindly participated on my thesis committee, providing me with
numerous articles and leads, but also encouraged me as an undergraduate student to
pursue my Master’s degree in Spanish literature. Many thanks as well to Roberto G.
Fernández, not only a committee member who continuously encouraged my
progression but also a talented author in whose future works I hope to find either just
around a corner or hiding up a tree a lurking, female vampire. Finally, I would like to
thank José Gomáriz for encouraging the writing of the paper on Delmira Agustini in his
Modernismo class that began this entire adventure.
To my fellow Florida State University graduate students and friends Beth Butler and
Ivelisse Collazo Rivera, I offer thanks for their continued interest in my research and
their helpful leads and ideas.
To my loving husband Fabian Balmori to whom I cannot offer enough thanks for his
continued support in everything that I do, always encouraging me to do my best, to
follow my heart, my instinct, and my passion, for always believing in me, and
encouraging me to believe in me.
Finally, to my newborn baby boy Leonardo Julián Balmori who has literally been with
me throughout the majority of this process. I thank you for your companionship and
patience through what must have been many long hours of quiet research and writing.
You are present from the first word to the last.
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract
..........................................................................................
vi
1. INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................
1
2. REFLECTIONS OF DELMIRA AGUSTINI’S FEMALE VAMPIRE .....
10
3. CONTRASTING VOICES OF THE FEMALE VAMPIRE IN POE,
DARÍO, BAUDELAIRE, ROSSETTI AND AGUSTINI ........................
40
4. FROM VICTIM TO VAMPIRE: THE FEMALE VAMPIRE OF
C. BRONTE, C. ROSSETTI, AND AGUSTINI...................................
66
5. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................
78
WORKS CITED .....................................................................................
91
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ....................................................................
95
v
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to discover how the female vampire in Delmira Agustini’s
poem “El vampiro” differs in comparison to her literary predecessors found in the works of
Poe, Baudelaire, Darío, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, and Charlotte Brontë.
Chapter 1 is a study of the atmosphere, setting, plot, character, structure, theme, symbolism,
voice, and overall emotional impact of the poem. In addition, visual references to the paintings
Vampire and The Vampire by Edvard Munch and Philip Burne-Jones, respectively, and literary
references to Bram Stoker’s Dracula are made as well. For example, Munch’s Vampire and
Agustini’s “El vampiro” exemplify the New Woman-change that was taking hold of the
domestic, public, and art spheres in societies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Due to these changing societal circumstances, both works illustrate the resulting sense of a
curious unease by setting their subjects in a position of unfamiliar power and within an
atmosphere infused with a distinctive, new kind of fear, where Munch’s Vampire expresses
man’s fear of the female and Agustini’s “El vampiro” expresses a female’s fear of the female –
that is, the female’s fear of self. Chapter 2 surveys the portrait if the female vampire drawn in
Poe’s short stories “Berenice”, “Morella,” and “Ligeia” and Darío’s “Thanatopía” alongside the
poems “Le Vampire” and “Les Metamorphoses de Vampire” by Baudelaire and Rossetti’s
Body’s Beauty, a work consisting of both a painting and a poem. Within these works, I believe
it is the male narrator’s identity – not that of the female – which concerns the author. In
contrast, through this fantastical creature, Agustini expresses her anxiety about a cultural
reality that she would otherwise be unable to communicate if writing in a realistic fashion.
Finally, Chapter 3 is a study of Christina Rossetti’s poem Goblin Market and Charlotte Brontë’s
novel Jane Eyre in comparison to Agustini’s “El vampiro”. The changes presented within these
works in regards to the female vampire demonstrate the various levels of progression toward
emancipation in the role of women from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth
century. Having rewritten the image of the female vampire through a female point of view,
Agustini created a transition between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This transitional
characterization of Agustini’s vampire marks the evolution of woman from powerless to
powerful and rewrites the inhuman character of the female vampire into a human character
more representative of the turn of the twentieth century and today.
vi
INTRODUCTION
THE VAMPIRE IN THE POETRY OF DELMIRA AGUSTINI
Against the background of a Victorian ideology
that confines women to a sheltering home as a refuge
from the dangerous male world outside, female vampires
prowl the streets at night, they conquer public space,
they are promiscuous…
Anne Koenen
I. Purpose of Study
The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of the female vampire in
Delmira Agustini‘s poem ―El vampiro‖ in order to determine how she has
developed the character differently in comparison to the literary archetypes in the
works of her mostly male predecessors and to demonstrate how her perspective
distinguishes itself from these past writings.
Chapter 1 reviews the poem through a precritical response as well as
traditional and formalist approaches. Elements studied in detail include
atmosphere, setting, plot, character, structure, and theme, in addition to
historical-biographical considerations, symbolism, the speaker‘s voice, and the
overall emotional impact of the poem. Visual comparisons reference the
paintings Vampire and The Vampire by Edvard Munch and Philip Burne-Jones,
respectively, and literary references are made to Bram Stoker‘s Dracula.
Chapter 2 surveys the canonical, classic works written by male authors
that precede Agustini‘s poem, and thereby determining the archetypical
characteristics of the nineteenth century female vampire character. Short stories
such as Edgar Allen Poe‘s ―Berenice,‖ ―Morella,‖ and ―Ligeia‖ and Rubén Darío‘s
―Thanatopía‖ are studied alongside poems by Charles Baudelaire such as ―Le
Vampire‖ and ―Les Metamorphoses de Vampire.‖ The double work by Dante
1
Gabriel Rossetti titled either Body‘s Beauty or Lady Lilith, a work consisting of
both a poem and painting, is also referenced along with its connection to Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe‘s Faust. A close evaluation of these works reveals the
common characteristics associated with the female vampire by her male
creators. The conclusion of this chapter compares and contrasts these
commonalities to the female vampire presented in the poem of Agustini.
Chapter 3 is a study of Christina Rossetti‘s poem Goblin Market and
Charlotte Brontë‘s novel Jane Eyre, in comparison to Agustini‘s ―El vampiro.‖ And
although no characters within either work are identified as vampires per se,
characteristics of the female vampire do exist within Brontë‘s madwoman Bertha
Rochester and C. Rossetti‘s descriptions of the two sisters, Lizzie and Laura.
Like the works of the male authors discussed in Chapter 2, Goblin Market and
Jane Eyre are predecessive works to Agustini‘s ―El vampiro,‖ albeit penned by
female authors. The interest in this comparison between C. Rossetti, C. Brontë,
and Agustini lies in the progression of the female vampire character over the
years within the works of these three canonical, female authors.
This study focuses on the gender of the female vampire. As Simone de
Beauvoir notes when speaking about how ―individuals of the female sex assume
the feminine gender – that is, that elaborate set of restrictive, socially prescribed
attitudes and behaviors that we associate with femininity‖ (Murfin 435), ―‗one is
not born a woman, one becomes one‘‖ (qtd. in Murfin 435). In the nineteenth
century, the conventional, feminine behavior generally associated with a female‘s
domesticity and submission gave way to masculine dominance. For example, it
became lawful for women to own property and file for divorce - and as the
property and marriage laws began to change, so did the roles of women. In
Victorian society, there was an increasing concern in regards to women‘s
newfound masculinity. So much so, that in 1895 Punch published a poem that
questioned the future of the sexes, satirically stating that there would be no
sexes in the future unless females became males and males became females
(Riquelme, ―SOS ELTIS― 454).
2
And although philosophers Karl Marx in ―The Limits of the Workday‖ and
Friedrich Nietzsche in ―Why We Are Not Idealists‖ associated capitalism and
philosophical idealism with vampirism, respectively, while Agustini‘s Uruguay
experienced an increase in modernization at the end of the nineteenth century,
this study focuses rather on the ―cultural expectations concerning male and
female behavior‖ (Riquelme, ―Critical History‖ 421). For example, in the
Introduction to his Lessons of the Masters, George Steiner reflects on the
essence of the idea of education and, specifically, the authority of one who
teaches another. In regards to this authority, he states that:
one makes out three principal scenarios or structures of relation.
Masters have destroyed their disciples both psychologically and, in
rarer cases, physically. They have broken their spirits, consumed their
hopes, exploited their dependence and individuality. The domain of
the soul has its vampires. In counterpoint, disciples, pupils,
apprentices have subverted, betrayed, and ruined their Masters.
Again, this drama has both mental and physical attributes. (2)
Of course, in a patriarchal society the Master would represent the male while the
disciple would represent the female, and thus the relations between the two are
studied. Steiner‘s reinterpretation of the male and female roles, or that of the
Master and disciple, is portrayed in ―El vampiro,‖ especially where the nineteenth
century cultural expectations are broken and the female physically penetrates the
male (Riquelme, ―Critical History‖ 421).
II. The Blood-Sucking Women of Folklore and Fairytales
The female vampire was introduced into folklore as a means of
explanation for otherwise unexplainable deaths, specifically the seemingly
untimely death of children. For example, in Greek mythology Lamia was a female
demon renowned for her seduction of men and killing of children. Also in
Babylonia, the myths of Lilitu (a seductress that violated men while they slept)
and Lamashtu (a murderer of children) existed as fearful legends (Schwartz,
3
Reimagining 58). In Jewish folklore dating back to the first or third century, the
myth of Obyzouth (also a murderer of children) was absorbed into the legendary
Lilith character, a more widely recognized nighttime demoness (59). Born from
the single Biblical passage that states ―male and female he created them‖ (Bible,
Gen. 1:27), some rabbis interpreting the Bible as literal understood this passage
to mean that man and woman, or Adam and his first wife Lilith, were created
together while Adam‘s second wife, Eve, was created later (Schwartz, Lilith‘s
Cave 5).
One of the earliest versions of the Lilith legend is from the eleventh
century. Howard Schwartz summarizes The Alphabet of Ben Sira, of either
Persian or Arabic origin, in the following:
The legend tells how God created a companion for Adam and
named her Lilith. But Lilith and Adam bickered endlessly over matters
large and small, with Lilith refusing to let Adam dominate her in any
way. Instead she insisted that they were equal. Eventually Lilith
pronounced the Ineffable Name of God and flew out of the Garden of
Eden to the shore of the Red Sea. There she made her home in a
cave, taking for lovers all the demons who lived there, and giving birth
to a great multitude. This explains the proliferation of demons in the
world.
Adam complained to God, who sent three angels, Senoy,
Sansenoy, and Semangeloff to command her to return to Adam. But
Lilith refused. Not even the angels threatening to kill one hundred of
her demon offspring a day moved her. Instead she proclaimed that
she had been created to snatch the souls of infants, and she vowed
that only if confronted with an amulet bearing the names of the three
angels would she do no harm. So widely known was this legend that
such amulets became a familiar feature of Jewish life, and are used
even today in some Orthodox Jewish circles.
Since Lilith‘s flight from Eden she has sought her revenge by
slipping beneath the sheets of men who sleep alone and trying to
4
seduce them. So too does she attempt to strangle infants in their
cradles. But if she finds the amulet with the names of the three angels
on it, along with the words Out Lilith!, she turns away and does not
approach that child (Lilith‘s Cave 5-6).
Schwartz speculates that this characterization of Lilith may have given rise to the
myth of the vampire. After all, Lilith and her followers do possess several
vampiric characteristics. He notes the fatal kiss of the scorned demon princess in
the ―The Kiss of Death‖ fairytale (15) and the tale of the fearful night before a
ceremonious circumcision in which a baby boy almost dies at the hands, or
claws, of the midwife who transforms herself into a murderess cat (Schwartz,
Reimagining 60).
In Biblical terms, Lilith is the evil counterpart to the angelic Eve. According
to Schwartz, ―Lilith is assertive, seductive, and ultimately destructive; Eve is
passive, faithful, and supportive. Thus […] this negative characterization of Lilith
served as the basis of a substantial body of demonic tales in medieval Jewish
folklore‖ (Schwartz, Lilith‘s Cave 6). In his parable ―The Story of Lilith and Eve,‖
author Jakov Lind unites Lilith and Eve into a single woman. Schwartz concludes
that this union allows for an enlightened view not only into the legends
themselves, but also into the innermost mysteries of the self, because ―the polar
myths of Lilith and Eve are best understood as coexisting in the same person‖
(Reimagining 66-67). It is only through the combination of the two polar opposites
of good and evil, or ―the essential states of the self they portray so well‖ (67), that
exist within each of us that a person is complete or whole.
Characterized as a seductress and murderer of children, Lilith was
scorned by women who observed her as a threat to their matrimonial and
maternal lives. Men, on the other hand, viewed Lilith with a mixture of fear and
sexual intrigue. This difference of perspective is also apparent in what Professor
Dov Noy of The Hebrew University proposes as ―‗men‘s tales‘ and ‗women‘s
tales.‘‖ He references the story of Reb Melech, a religious man confronted by but
abstaining from the sexual temptations of Lilith, as a men‘s tale, and the
5
nonsexual tale of the rejection of Lilith by a housewife in ―The Hair in the Milk‖ as
a women‘s tale (Schwartz, Reimagining 63).
These final two points in regards to polarity, Lilith vs. Eve and men‘s tales
vs. women‘s tales, serve as two main points of discussion. In Chapter 1, the
narrator of ―El vampiro‖ struggles between the polarity of the stereotypical Lilith
and Eve roles bestowed upon her by her companion, herself, and society. In
Chapters 2 and 3, the polarity between men‘s tales and women‘s tales in regards
to the female vampire character developed in the nineteenth century are
explored. Through this exploration of polarities a better understanding of the
female vampire as presented in Agustini‘s poem will become apparent. As
Thomas A. Shipka and Arthur J. Minton explain in the Introduction to their
Philosophy: Paradox and Discovery:
By bringing out the paradoxical in the familiar, our attention is forced
inward, to our system of definitions, to the conceptual paths we have
made for ourselves in the world. The confusion we feel is that of a
traveler who has used a road daily in one direction and now for the
first time must travel the opposite way. The old landmarks are alien,
the curves and hills are not where they are supposed to be, the terrain
is confusing. (6)
It is this confusion, the paradox of the familiar, and the inward focus of Agustini‘s
poetic persona that creates the tension and velocity of the poem.
To ―‗know thyself‘ is the first injunction of philosophy‖. Therefore, ―the
first task of philosophy is to bring these presuppositions to consciousness‖
(Shipka 3). In ―El vampiro,‖ Agustini expresses the anxiety involved in taking this
first step towards consciousness, specifically through one‘s own self-recognition
and the realization of one‘s own enculturation by society. Agustini demonstrates
the paradox of the familiar through the poetic voice‘s recognition of both her good
and evil selves. In the final stanza of the poem, an inward focus by the poetic
voice firmly establishes itself in this first step of philosophy. Here the poetic voice
is searching to ―know thyself,‖ and through her female vampire characterization
the complexity of her whole self is apparent. The poetic voice possesses
6
characteristics both good and evil. Of course, one would like to believe oneself to
possess more good qualities than evil. However, in the end, she is left to
determine why her companion deems her evil and whether or not she chooses to
accept his, and nineteenth century society‘s, determination. In other words, in
this union of her polar qualities she must determine how it is that she perceives
herself, as either good or evil.
III. Fantasy as the Female Reality
Most fairytales and folklore base themselves upon reality, but continue to
circulate due to their abilities to explain the mysteries of life. Mysteries of life,
especially unfortunate mysteries, are more easily explained in the genre of the
fantastic as opposed to that of reality. For example, the unfortunate reality of
stillbirths is explained in the Jewish culture as due to the destructive forces of
Lility, a precursor to Lilith. Told and retold, the legend of Lility therefore continues
to exist in the written and oral traditions of the Jewish culture (Schwartz, Lilith‘s
Cave 1). Why this constant repetition of the same story? Because of ―the
timeless fantasies and human concerns it embodies.‖ Schwartz argues that tales
such as those of Lility provide ―a medium of expression for the archetypes of the
unconscious‖ (Schwartz, Reimagining 44). Otherwise, if these stories had no
basis in reality, and therefore no purpose other than sheer entertainment, the
popularity of these fantastic tales would eventually die out and leave their primary
characters, such as the vampire, extinct. According to Schwartz, ―If Lilith served
no other purpose than to resolve the contradiction in the biblical text, such an
extensive legend, with so many ramifications, would never have come into being‖
(Lilith‘s Cave 8).
Thus, through fantasy, women writers are able to express certain thoughts
about reality that they would otherwise be unable to communicate if writing in a
realistic fashion. In an atmosphere of oppression and silence, in a society where
―realistic texts ultimately have to re-inscribe hegemonic constructions of reality
and to accomodate their heroines‘ desires to the existing social order,‖ fantasy
7
allows for an unconfined, liberated manner of storytelling. The voices of the
marginalized and silenced find space for expression in the fantastic. Women
authors, free to tap into the unconscious archetypes of literature, create their own
fantastical societies and make these archetypes their own. For only from outside
the norm of patriarchal society are they able to address the restrictive realities of
the everyday culture of man (Koenen 156-57).
In connection to Noy‘s concept of ―men‘s tales‖ and ―women‘s tales,‖ Anne
Koenen states that ―Women‘s texts demonstrate that there are traditions of the
feminine fantastic that set their own standards and differ markedly from the ‗male‘
fantastic, a fantastic that has been taken as the normative concept.‖ It is this
normative concept that acts as a restrictive reality to the marginalized, silenced,
and oppressed population - namely women. According to Koenen, ―where male
writers use the vampire to warn against and expel female sexuality, women
writers welcome the possibility to construct a sexual order that is not based on
compulsive heterosexuality, enforced reproduction, and patriarchal monogamy‖
(157). In Chapters 1 and 2, the male artists portray the nineteenth century female
vampire in a misogynistic manner, reflecting the norms of Victorian society. In
Chapter 3, although Agustini and C. Rossetti interpret the female vampire‘s
characteristics through a female perspective, they also continue to view their
subjects through the lens of a patriarchal culture. These variations in the works of
male and female authors in regards to the vampire character consequently result
in the development of different fantastic, literary traditions (152), perhaps
distinguishable as ―men‘s tales‖ and ―women‘s tales‖.
The characterization of the female vampire changes throughout these
works in accordance with women‘s social status. Therefore, as the New Woman
of the Victorian era shattered the patriarchal, preconceived notions of society, so
did the female vampire change the landscape of her literary motif. In both cases,
the once marginalized female emerges from obscurity and the once silenced
subject gains a voice. ―Against the background of a Victorian ideology that
confines women to a sheltering home as a refuge from the dangerous male world
outside, female vampires prowl the streets at night, they conquer public space,
8
they are promiscuous – in Dracula‘s accurate description, ‗working wickedness at
night‘‖ (Koenen 151). ―In women‘s fiction, the female vampire has accordingly
become a means to overcome women‘s powerlessness‖ (152), and as noted in
Agustini‘s poem, the male figure of society withdraws to the marginalized
recesses of society as the New Woman, or new female vampire, explores her
newfound freedom.
9
CHAPTER 1
REFLECTIONS OF DELMIRA AGUSTINI‘S FEMALE VAMPIRE
…prevented from contributing to the society in which they live,
idle, helpless, and destructive, many women come to resemble vampires,
who suck vitality from those around them.
Carol Senf
Poetry leads from the known to the unknown.
Georges Bataille
Introduction
In a gray room, the twentieth century Uruguayan poet Delmira Agustini
and the nineteenth century Norwegian painter Edvard Munch have imprisoned
their subjects alone with a vampire, in the poem ―El vampiro‖ (1910) and painting
Vampire (1893-94), respectively. Each of their artistic scenes permeates ―the
negative aspects of existence, such as pain, frustration, sickness, and death‖
(―Existentialism‖) and impregnates the observer with a sense of hopelessness
and dread. Moreover, although the subjects of these works are not physically
alone in their dungeon-like chambers, the oppressive weight of an emotionally
solitary existence emphasizes their individual mental states of solitude. In this
way, these two images, a painting and a poem, appear to mirror one other. In
addition, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then Munch‘s master-crafted
painting should adequately reveal insight into the 116 words of Agustini‘s poem.
However, the reflective surface of these two mirrored images is only skindeep. With the slightest scratch, or critical penetration, a vast difference
underlying these two works is revealed. In fact, the vampire painting by
nineteenth century British artist Philip Burne-Jones appropriately titled The
Vampire (1897) better represents the physical setting of Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖
10
than does Munch‘s Vampire. What with the unconscious male lying helpless in
his bed under the encroachingly evil gaze and physical presence of the femme
fatal, Burne-Jones and Agustini appear to be storytellers of the same tale.
However, be this as it may, Burne-Jones‘s black and white painting relays only
as much of the essence of Agustini‘s poem as do the behind-the-curtain
character silhouettes of a play before the lights come up and music begins; the
audience sees the outline of the characters and their positioning, but nothing of
their true character is revealed.
The difference between Burne-Jones and Munch, as we will see, lies in
that much of Munch‘s meaning exists in his chosen color palette – just as the
colors coordinated by a play‘s set designer are used to invoke a particular
significance or emotion within the audience once the play begins. Additionally,
whether in the tangible, visual color by Munch or the inferred color choices by
Agustini through her descriptive poetry, both artists depend on the symbolism of
their chosen color palettes (primarily black, white and red) to reinforce the
messages of their work. Due to this among other things, we will compare
Munch‘s Vampire and Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ in order to unravel her tangled
painting of words, which at first glance so closely resembles these two maleproduced paintings, but through closer observation, its own individuality becomes
obvious.
The colors used by Munch in his Vampire, along with his subjects‘
individual positioning on the page and their relationship to one another, impart
the qualities or essence of life that we will attempt to extract and observe in
regards to the subjects of Agustini‘s poem ―El vampiro‖. First presented in
Germany as a part of a twenty-two work exhibit which eventually became his
most widely celebrated collection, the exhibit Frieze of Life (1902) presents a
sequence meant to represent ―love‘s awakening, blossoming, and withering,
followed by despair and death‖ (―Munch‖).
Ironically, one of the later works within the collection, The Kiss (1897),
embodies one of the earlier stages of blossoming love. Here Munch melts a
woman into a man‘s embrace, so much so that the line of separation between
11
them is nearly indistinguishable. Furthermore, within the object of the title, the
kiss, the line of separation is nonexistent. The faces of the lovers melt into one,
hers yielding to the pressure of his as she tilts her head back and becomes
somewhat obscured from view; hence without any distinguishing characteristics,
each giving up or losing their own identifying, individual characteristics to the
other and thereby, in a sense, becoming one. Although this absorption of the
female by the loftier position of power held by the male could be interpreted as
overpowering and oppressive toward the female, I think that the tone portrayed in
the painting is one of a young, passionate love. In that the two figures are
represented in one color and softly blended together without any lines of
separation, the impression is of a mutually agreed upon union.
However, in his earlier works, such as Melancholy (1892-93), Ashes
(1894), and Jealousy (1894-95), Munch grapples with the later stages of despair
and death, focusing on such themes as the ―suffering caused by love,‖ isolation,
loneliness, and death (―Munch‖). Specifically in his Death in the Sick Room
(1893-95), Munch focuses on the individuality of each black clad figure wrapped
in his or her own experience of grief while portrayed in isolation from the others.
Seven figures in mourning are depicted in the one-room scene along with the
body of the deceased, laid just out of view. Of the seven figures, not one
attempts to make eye contact with anyone else because they are all lost in their
own individual worlds. The only figure posed in a full frontal position to face the
viewing audience with lifted eyes has shifted her focus slightly to her right. Her
positioning suggests a desire to make contact with someone existing beyond her
sad circumstance, but the shift in her eyes indicates that her overwhelming grief
is still present and does not allow her to look beyond herself or her own pain. Her
face is taut and white, and the young female figure appears withdrawn and
complacent to live within this realm of death. Consequently, unable to assuage
the subject‘s relentless pain, the distressed viewer walks away from Death in the
Sick Room somewhat retreated into his or her own mournful solitude.
Agustini, like Munch, also focused on the most demonic and destructive
stages of life in her early work. As part of her second book of poetry, ―El vampiro‖
12
revolves around a poetic voice trapped, although not alone, within a world of
despair. Agustini‘s subject rebels against her claustrophobic captivity emotionally
and physically but, much like the young female in Death in the Sick Room, she is
unable to look beyond her present circumstance and withdraw herself from the
death chamber.
Within these two works, Death in the Sick Room and ―El vampiro,‖ the
artists focus on the extreme solitude felt by various individuals, although
ironically, they are not alone. This paradox of isolation within a population
repeats itself throughout these vampire-works. Returning to Burne-Jones‘s The
Vampire, both characters are seemingly alone although in the presence of each
another. The vampiric femme fatal is an otherworldly creature forced by
circumstance to exist infinitely between the two worlds of the living and the dead.
Meanwhile her victim, the unlucky and unconscious man lying at her fingertips, is
undoubtedly helpless and alone. In Munch‘s Vampire, his use of definite, defined
lines and various colors separates the subjects in a way that allows them to exist
individually, much like in Death in the Sick Room. In stark contrast to the smooth,
blending lines of The Kiss, the two subjects in the Vampire do embrace one
another albeit in a much more abrupt, loveless manner due in part to the
unforgiving lines of Munch‘s harsh and unblended color selection. Thus, although
the male and female figures within this painting are caught within a physical
embrace of some sort, there is no concern for the well-being of the other but only
a concern for the preservation of self. In addition, Munch has inverted the roles of
the two subject figures in the Vampire in relation to those of The Kiss. Where in
The Kiss, the male figure rises above the compliant female figure and bends
down to kiss her face lovingly turned up to him, in the Vampire it is the female
figure that bends over the rigid male figure whose face is turned inward upon
himself as he lies against her breast. Perhaps she bends to kiss him, however,
his awkward body language suggests something else - something much more
sinister. In ―El vampiro,‖ not only is the poetic voice plagued with a sense of
isolation as discussed above but the male figure is just as vulnerable as the man
in Burne-Jones‘s painting. Conclusively, the characters of the vampire and its
13
victim tend to dictate a certain solitary atmosphere or mood within the works of
art in which they are present.
Agustini‘s poem acts as a type of microcosm presenting not only the
circumstances of nineteenth century society but also a reinterpreted reflection of
the above mentioned, and other male-produced, vampire works. Exploring the
negative aspects of life, just as her artistic predecessors did within a similar
boudoir-setting heavy with tormented solitude, Agustini circumvents some of our
classic expectations and presents a new perspective through which to receive
the twentieth century vampire.
Edvard Munch‘s Vampire
Northrop Frye once wrote that:
a word, let us say, has its dictionary or conventional meaning, which
exists independently of what we are reading; and it also has its
particular meaning in the context of what we are reading. Our attention
as we read is thus going simultaneously in two directions, outward to
the conventional or remembered meaning, inward to the specific
contextual meaning (57).
So let us say that a poem, as well, has both a conventional and specific
contextual meaning. Then let us go further to say that previously published or
exhibited works dictate the conventional meaning that a reader will assume about
a poem while it is the author‘s, and more importantly the reader‘s, individual
intent that differentiates the specific contextual meaning of a poem. Therefore, in
this exploration of the poem ―El vampiro‖ by Delmira Agustini, we will be looking
in two directions at all times. In the conventional direction, we will focus mainly on
comparing the previously exhibited Vampire work by Munch with Agustini‘s
poem, while for the specific contextual meaning we will focus primarily on
Agustini‘s various aspects of individual expression and varied reader
interpretations.
14
To begin this exploration of ―El vampiro,‖ let us first begin with a look at
the setting and atmosphere of Munch‘s comparative work, Vampire. In this
painting, Munch presents us with two pale figures, a man and a woman,
enclosed within a dark background. The body of the man rests on the breast of
the woman as if he has collapsed, either hopeless or lifeless. She embraces him
with her arms, pulls him to her chest and bends her mouth toward his neck.
Munch reveals only a portion of the man‘s profile, hiding the face of the woman
completely beneath her long red hair. She allows these tendrils to spread out
over them both like shared branches of a river of blood. Thus, blood appears to
be the only shared element between these two, either figurative or literal.
Due to its title, the gist of Vampire is obvious. The female is a vampire and
the male is her prey. She will suck the life-giving blood from his neck until he
succumbs to the powers of the vampire and evolves into this breed of the undead
as well. There is no love shared between Munch‘s Vampire subjects, in spite of
their embrace, except perhaps a mutual love of self-preservation. One would
have to believe that this incapacitated man would have put up a fight to save his
life, if not for the seductive influence of the vampire, the same seductive
influence, in fact, that Bram Stoker so aptly describes in regards to the almostvictim Jonathan Harker at the hands of the three femme fatales in the forbidden
salon of Dracula. However, due to the white stiffness of the man‘s physique, it
appears as though he will inevitably lose that battle, if he has not already.
The setting of Munch‘s Vampire takes place in an undefined, dark space.
The time of day is presumably the dark of night because vampires are nocturnal
creatures and that is when they feed. The portrayal of this gothically morbid
dinner by a female vampire is reminiscent of Stoker‘s scene in Dracula in which
Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, Lord Arthur Godalming, and Quincy Morris enter
the graveyard in order to free Miss Lucy from her vampire-state and release her
into the peace of death. It is during this midnight hunt that these men witness
their fair Lucy‘s true predicament. Amongst the tombstones, she feeds upon a
small child like a mythical Lamia. Only then do her admirers finally recognize that
the ideal Victorian woman, their doll-like Lucy, is gone forever. In her place
15
stands an otherworldly creature, a culprit of unspeakable crimes and horrors. The
only remnant representative of her innocent past is the beloved body of Lucy,
escaping nightly from the grave.
That Munch paints his Vampire in tones of black is no coincidence. In fact,
according to psychoanalysts, ―black sucks in colour and does not return it‖
(―Black‖). Probably the most widely recognized vampire trait is that of the
vampire‘s pointed incisors, piercing a victim‘s delicate skin in order to lap its
liquidy reward. A description of this well-known vampire phenomenon is included
in Jonathan Harker‘s journal where he writes about his first encounter with the
three female vampires in Stoker‘s Dracula:
All three had brilliant white teeth, that shone like pearls against the
ruby of their voluptuous lips. . . . There was a deliberate
voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she
arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could
see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on
the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower
went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin
and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I
could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and
lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my
throat began to tingle as one‘s flesh does when the hand that is to
tickle it approaches nearer – nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering
touch of the lips on the supersensitive skin of my throat, and the hard
dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my
eyes in a languorous ecstacy and waited – waited with beating heart
(61-62).
Harker continues to describe this desirous yet fearful experience in his next
journal entry by noting, ―nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women,
who were – who are – waiting to suck my blood‖ (63). For in general, if a vampire
continuously sucks a victim‘s blood, the vampire will eventually drain the life right
16
out of him or her. The victim then crosses over to the land of the undead, the
land of the vampire, from which there is no return.
Few words, if any, embody the atmosphere of the Vampire as well as
those suggested by symbolists in regards to the color black. According to
symbolists, black suggests chaos, ―anguish, sorrow, the unconscious and death‖
and it is the ―colour of melancholy, pessimism, […] and misfortune‖. Black also
goes hand in hand with evil. It is, in effect, considered to be the Devil‘s color,
especially when ―in combination with red suggesting smoke and flame‖ (―Black‖).
Compare this description with the colors of Munch‘s Vampire. In a dark
background, the vampire has long red hair and there is the assumed trickle of
blood flowing from the male‘s pale neck into her red, feasting mouth. Due to
these similarities, I suggest that the color imagery of black and red used by
Munch in Vampire is not coincidence, but a reiteration that his female subject is a
representation of evil.
Throughout a majority of his life Munch maintained an unnatural fear of
women, thus providing more reason for Munch to surround his femme fatal in a
symbolic sea of black. According to G. F. Wingfield Digby, author of Meaning and
Symbol in Three Modern Artists: Edvard Munch, Henry Moore, Paul Nash,
women to Munch – although ―fascinating‖ – also held for him a sense of ―dread
and terror‖ (50). Therefore, it is no wonder that he would portray women in his
paintings as negative, or even evil. The Vampire, with its redheaded female
secretly devouring under the stealth of night the throat of an unconscious,
helpless man, undoubtedly presents a visual cause to fear women. In this regard,
it could be argued that the Vampire even represents a possible nightmare. Who
would not be terrified by the confrontation of a bestial death? The irony lies only
in the sex of the beast, that is, unless one is familiar with the seductive powers of
the vampire. In a patriarchal society, such as Munch‘s nineteenth century
Europe, these otherworldly powers of the female vampire help explain an
otherwise odd juxtaposition of characters. Wingfield Digby goes on to quote Rolf
Stenersen, author of ―Woman and Death; the Breath of the Corpse,‖ who says,
―…women had for [Munch] the same smell of death‖ (qtd. in Wingfield Digby, 50).
17
―So for him,‖ Wingfield Digby concludes, ―woman is a vampire… [and] man is
always lured by woman to his undoing‖ (51).
Munch was not alone in this fear of women. Previously in the eighteenth
century, many men suffered from a type of ―male castration anxiety‖ due in part
to the image of the French Revolutionary woman while the nineteenth century
produced its own type of female warrior as well, the New Woman. This new type
of woman was a confident and outspoken creature that campaigned publicly for
suffrage and women‘s rights, specifically when acting as public speaker and she
―provoked similar fears of being unmanned in her male audience‖ (Kahane 7). In
fact, the very term New Woman ―stirred up the demons of uncertainty not only
about women‘s proper place, but about men‘s proper place as well‖ (6), thus
announcing an unwelcome change to those comfortable in the patriarchal culture
of the nineteenth century.
By the late nineteenth century, existing patriarchal social structures were
seemingly under attack by the effects of industrialization that had invaded the
western world: industrial capitalism, urban centers, and new social classes.
Claire Kahane notes in her Passions of the Voice: Hysteria, Narrative, and the
Figure of the Speaking Woman, 1850-1915 that with these abrupt changes
awakened a sense of fear or anxiety ―of being subject to forces beyond one‘s
comprehension or control‖ (1). In addition, ever since the publication of Mary
Wollstonecraft‘s book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), the demand
for woman‘s suffrage had increased throughout Europe and the western world.
With this increased demand came a new breed of woman very different to the
passive, maternal role presented by society as the norm. This new woman
represented a powerful woman, a new type of woman worthy of the fear
displayed in Munch‘s Vampire.
Notice the stark contrast between the ideal Victorian woman and the New
Woman available within two works of Munch‘s collection. In The Kiss, the woman
is ―properly‖ positioned below the man and gives way to his figure, which
dominates the forefront of the scene, thus blocking her somewhat from view. In
this manner, Munch depicts that love - or at least passion – is possible with a
18
woman, if she acts within the set social standard and is submissive to the man. In
Vampire, Munch places the woman above the man. As such, she is in complete
control of him. He lies passively in her arms, a role previously upheld as the
socially and sexually ideal woman. Due to the social culture of the time, this
scenario must have seemed bizarre to either the male subject in the painting or
to a conservative nineteenth century viewer. Either way, the idea of a woman
possessing power over a man would have stretched one‘s level of
comprehension and comfort.
Giving grounds to Munch‘s ever-lasting fear of women, the New Woman,
as Elaine Showalter states, ―threatened to turn the world upside down and to be
on top in a wild carnival of social and sexual misrule,‖ (qtd. in Kahane 6). Kahane
goes on to explain:
Showalter‘s metaphor of sexual reversal, a common image for the
cultural consequences of women‘s liberation in the popular
iconography of the time, indicates the implicit challenge to
heterosexual positioning that the New Woman conveyed, but nowhere
more so than by mounting the platform and speaking, by putting
herself actually on top (6).
In regards to sexual reversal, the three female vampires in Stoker‘s Dracula, as
they stood over him in his lying position, provoked in Jonathan Harker a certain
unease, ―some longing and at the same time some deadly fear‖ (61). Present in
Munch‘s Vampire is this same positioning of the female on top of the male,
contributing to a sense of unease.
In regards to the nineteenth century‘s New Woman warrior, ―social critics
of the time responded to the emergence of this New Woman by predicting the
end of Western civilization‖ (Kahane 3). The New York Herald referred to female
orators as inhuman ―specimens,‖ ―freakish‖ creatures, and vocal Medusas (7).
Similarly, Dr. Seward in his Dracula diary described the facial features of the
vampiric Lucy when faced with destruction as having wrinkled brows ―as though
the folds of the flesh were the coils of Medusa‘s snakes, and the lovely, bloodstained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks
19
and Japanese. If ever a face meant death – if looks could kill – we saw it at that
moment‖ (Stoker 219).
Below the text in the Bedford edition of Dracula, there is a note that states,
―Anthropologists of Stoker‘s time speculated ‗that Medusa, whose virtue is really
in her head, is derived from the ritual mask common to primitive cults‘‖ (Stoker
219). Dr. Seward‘s assessment of Lucy‘s mask-like appearance is symbolically
accurate. In fact, in Ancient Greek tradition:
masks were commonly employed in sacred ritual, ceremony and
dance, at funerals, as offerings, as disguise and in the theatre. As in
Japanese theatre, these stage masks were stereotyped and generally
emphasized the common characteristics of the person they
represented – king, old man, woman, slave, and so on. When an actor
put on a mask, externally or by magical appropriation, he became one
with the character he played. His mask was a symbol of identification.
The mask symbol has been borrowed for dramatic purposes in stories,
plays and films in which a person becomes so identified with the
character or mask as to be unable to rid him- or herself of it. Incapable
of tearing off the mask, that person becomes the character it
represents. (―Mask‖)
Thus once a New Woman, a female orator, or a frightening femme fatal donned
their mask of power, they would be incapable of separating themselves from their
new identity. Much like entering the realm of the vampire, once a victim crosses
to the world of the undead and dons the mask of the vampire there is no return to
the land of the living – or in the case of the New Woman, to the submissive land
of patriarchal times.
Although the New Woman did not single-handedly end Western
civilization, she did disrupt the patriarchal structure of nineteenth century society
and domestic fiction. This fiction, writes Freud in his ―Creative Writers and
Daydreaming,‖ typically involved ―the masculine hero whose ambition and desire
drive the action while the woman longs to be the object of his love, the mirror of
his achievement‖ (qtd. in Kahane ix). However, note how this quote if altered in
20
favor of the female still does not justly describe the results of this new domestic
fiction: ―the [feminine] hero whose ambition and desire drive that action while the
[man] longs to be the object of [her] love, the mirror of [her] achievement.‖
Although it is true that ―woman‖ became the focus of the literary times, take for
instance the emergence of such female-focused titles as Madame Bovary, Doña
Perfecta, Gloria, Fortunata y Jacinta, La regenta, Lucía Jerez, Shirley, Agnes
Grey, Jane Eyre, Mary Barton, Ruth, and Emma, the male does not completely
succumb into the feminine role. Therefore, this female-phenomenon that
extended beyond the world of fiction to affect art and poetry as well, focused
primarily on the shift in the female role and not a correlating shift in the male role.
Munch‘s Vampire and Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ exemplify the New Womanchange that was taking hold of the domestic, public, and art spheres in societies
of the nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. Due to these changing societal
circumstances, both works illustrate the resulting sense of a curious unease by
setting their subjects in a position of unfamiliar power and within an atmosphere
infused with a distinctive, new kind of fear.
Setting & Atmosphere in Delmira Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖
In a setting of rising, unfamiliar female power and atmosphere infused with
a distinctive, new fear, George Eliot described the nineteenth century society
when she wrote:
Men pay a heavy price for their reluctance to encourage self-help and
independent resources in women. The precious meridian years of
many a man of genius have to be spent in the toil of routing, that an
‗establishment‘ may be kept up for a woman who can understand
none of his secret yearnings, who is fit for nothing but to sit in her
drawing-room like a doll-Madonna in her shrine. No matter. Anything
is more endurable than to run the risk of looking up to our wives
instead of looking down on them...and so men say of women, let them
be idols, useless absorbents of precious things, provided we are not
21
obliged to admit them to be strictly fellow-beings to be treated, one
and all, with justice and sober reverence. (qtd. in Senf 130)
It is perhaps in such a drawing room that Agustini introduces us to the
male and female subjects of her poem, ―El vampiro,‖ although the ―old, ruined
chapel, which had evidently been used as a graveyard‖ (Stoker 70) that Count
Dracula uses for his sleeping chamber seems more appropriate. For in his
sleeping chamber the Count seems lost somewhere between life and death,
much like the male figure in Agustini‘s ―El vampiro.‖ In Dracula, Jonathan Harker
inspects the body of the Count for signs of life – movement, a pulse, a breath –
but there is nothing. The Count stares with dead eyes, seemingly unconscious of
Harker‘s presence. However, despite appearances, Harker knows that the Count
is not dead, that he will rise again in the night. Such is the atmosphere in
Agustini‘s ―El vampiro.‖ Both in darkened interior rooms, Jonathan Harker and
Agustini‘s female figure confront their sleeping antagonists, although, as Harker
remarks, ―to do so was a dread to my very soul‖ (70). When faced with fear,
human instinct offers only two options - fight or flight. When face-to-face with
Count Dracula, Harker chooses flight. On the other hand, Agustini‘s female
protagonist chooses to stay and fight. In Dracula, while Count Dracula occupies
the main vampire role, several female vampires are also in the novel in
secondary or inferior roles. Although it may seem that Agustini‘s sleeping male
figure is the vampire due to the similarity to Stoker‘s scene, there is another
possibility.
Emerging from the nineteenth century, and sixteen years after Munch
painted his Vampire, Delmira Agustini published her second book of poetry,
Cantos de la mañana (1910). Within this collection, Agustini struggles with the
same ―suffering caused by love‖ theme found in the early works of Munch‘s
Frieze of Life (―Munch‖). However, the continuous threads of isolation, loneliness,
and death themes that she weaves throughout this lighthearted and positively
titled collection seem ironic as Agustini impregnates poem after poem with the
continuous dark imagery of nocturnal coffins and shadowy paths. In other words,
22
where the title promises a work full of life and hope, the individual poems of the
collection focus instead on dread and death.
In one of the final poems of this collection, ―Los retratos‖ (the third part of
―Poemas‖), Agustini draws back the curtain as if in a dark theater in order to
reveal the skeletal framing of this collection – ―mi alma‖ (1), meaning my soul.
Agustini compares this soul of the poetic voice to a room or ―estancia …
entenebrece e ilumina … de los Desconocidos‖ (1-3). This description is eerily
reminiscent of the gray room of Munch‘s Vampire where his two figures are
surrounded by darkness yet bathed in a light, focusing the audience‘s attention
specifically on his two subjects. The relationship between the red-headed femme
fatal and the nondescript man in Munch‘s Vampire is ambiguous. However, the
bold black lines of separation drawn between the two suggests a certain
emotional disconnect, or isolation within a population (the two of them creating
their own population with the otherwise empty room), which prevents the
portrayal of any shared intimacy beyond the physical. This juxtaposition of light
and dark, and its various connotations of good and evil, life and death, etc.,
continues as a theme throughout Agustini‘s collection. For example, in order that
this compilation of dark poetic images be gathered under such a celebratory title,
a final, positive perspective seems inevitable. However, Agustini‘s poems are
constructed upon various levels of contradiction. Therefore, as is the essence of
poetry, it is necessary to peel away the many layers of Agustini‘s nuances in
order to ascertain a final perspective, either positive or negative.
The first image that Agustini presents in ―El vampiro,‖ obviously occurs in
the title and is that of a vampire. Therefore, before even reading the body of the
poem, this image of a fantastical creature generally associated with tales of
horror and terror from the Gothic genre ―intended to chill the spine and curdle the
blood‖ (―Gothic‖) is impressed upon the reader. Keeping within the literary
tradition of Horace Walpole‘s gothic narratives rising from the ruins of medieval
castles with dungeons, secret passages, and torture chambers that blossom
under the haunting rays of full moons at midnight, Agustini‘s gothic title likewise
implies an unsettling setting for her poem.
23
The second image of Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ is that of a ―tarde triste‖ (1),
or sad afternoon. Thus, as the sun continues to set the gray of dusk will
eventually place the setting of ―El vampiro‖ into the black of night. Consequently
scripting the scene of an eerie, darkening stage, anxiety builds as nighttime
approaches - especially when there is a vampire nearby. In regards to nighttime,
Jonathan Harker notes in his journal:
It has always been at night-time that I have been molested or
threatened, or in some way in danger or fear. I have not yet seen the
Count in the daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when others wake, that
he may be awake whilst they sleep? (Stoker 69).
Therefore, it is not presumptuous to assume that the setting will eclipse into total
darkness given the presence of a vampire and that nighttime is a vampire‘s
natural habitat. Note also in regards to the darkening scene a sense of symbolic
foreshadowing; fear associated with night and death associated with black.
Just as in Munch‘s Vampire and Burne-Jones‘s The Vampire, there are
two figures present within Agustini‘s darkening room - an incapacitated man and
a ravenous woman. The male figure is laid out like a corpse, leaving his identity
pale and undefined. The female figure in ―El vampiro‖ is quiet and reflective, like
a respectful mourner - at least in the beginning of the poem. Alone in the failing
light, the female leans over the male and studies his face, noting that he seems
to be listening to death (5-6). As the poem continues, a sad sort of anguish
penetrates the female‘s poetic voice and her emotional stream of sorrow builds in
strength as it flows across her tongue until, in the end, the first stanza‘s somber
setting of a funerary room is altered to that of a torment-laden bedroom chamber.
In addition to her increasingly violent dialogue, she assaults the male figure
physically as well. Thus, the respectful distance first implied in the beginning of
the poem gives way to a sadistically emotional and physical intimacy between
the male and female subjects.
In ―Los retratos,‖ the poetic voice defines her soul through the imagery of
a room. Therefore, it is not a far stretch to imagine that the torture-chamber
setting in ―El vampiro,‖ filled with its increasing chaos that climaxes in the third
24
stanza, also represents the poetic voice‘s tumultuous soul. In fact, where
Munch‘s Vampire expresses man‘s fear of the female, Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖
expresses a female‘s fear of the female – that is, the female‘s fear of self. In the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was not only the male population that
experienced a new sense of fear in regards to the changing patriarchal society.
Women, liberal or not, had to learn to live within these shifting tides as well. Their
role must have been even more complex because they had to decide which
mask to wear - that of a liberal or conservative woman. As discussed above, the
significance of the mask is that it transforms the individual. Therefore, it seems
there could be no middle ground, at least outwardly in the face that women
present to others. Because of this, Agustini focuses on the increasingly agitated
interior of the female.
In the first three stanzas, Agustini‘s female figure reflects upon the silent
body of the male figure laid out in front of her. In the fourth and final stanza, her
reflection turns inward in contemplation of her own life. Munch captures a similar
moment of self-reflection in the most forefront character in his Death in the Sick
Room. However, Agustini‘s female seeks to define herself, not through her own
perspective, but through that of the motionless male figure. In the final lines, she
poses two questions to the silent man, wanting him to clarify her identity for her.
She wants to know if, to him, she is a flower or a vampire. Here the poem ends
and her questions remain unanswered, at least by him.
These final questions are comparable to Lacan‘s interpretation of Freud‘s
nineteenth century study of hysteria where
the subject poses the question of sexual difference to an other,
demanding that the other produce an answer: Am I a man? Am I a
woman? How are these identifications embodied? How are they
signified? How do they determine a relation to the speaking subject?
(Kahane xi)
In regards to these questions, Kahane notes, ―not surprisingly, in an era that
constructed sexuality as a predominant gauge of psychosocial identity, these
insistent questions became increasingly prominent‖ (xi). Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖
25
demonstrates just how a society‘s conflict can devastatingly manifest itself within
the interior of an individual.
Poetic Personas in Delmira Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖
Somewhat in opposition to Edvard Munch‘s and Philip Burne-Jones‘s
vampire paintings, three possible personas exist within Agustini‘s poem ―El
vampiro.‖ While in these two paintings the role of the vampire is obviously
attributed to the female character, the role of the vampire is much less obvious in
the poem of Agustini. Although the reader is immediately aware of the presence
of a vampire due to the title of the poem, no visual clues are available to guide
the reader toward the identity of the vampire as in the paintings. Therefore, by
the first stanza the reader has been introduced to three characters – a vampire, a
male figure, and a female figure or poetic voice. However, only the male and
female characters are discussed in concrete terms thus leading the reader to
assign the role of the vampire to either one of these two figures, thereby
consolidating two characters into one. In other words, the reader forces either the
male or the female figure to also exist, simultaneously, as the vampire.
Symbolically, the vampire image embodies certain archetypal
characteristics. For example, ―vampires kill [the living] by taking their blood, their
survival being dependent upon their victims. Explanations in this context should
be based upon the dialectic of persecutor and victim and of the eater and the
eaten.‖ Moreover, the vampire symbolizes:
the lust for life, which bursts into fresh life every time one thinks that it
has been sated and which, unless mastered, leaves one exhausted in
a vain attempt to give it satisfaction. In concrete terms, this consuming
passion is transferred to ‗the other person‘, although it is simply a selfdestructive phenomenon. (―Vampires‖)
The vampire as a male literary character also embodies certain archetypal
characteristics. As noted in Conde de Siruela‘s collection of vampire lore, John
William Polidori‘s protagonist Lord Ruthven in The Vampyre (1819), represents
26
the classic vampire of English literature: ―el distante, distinguido y canallesco
aristócrata, aparentemente frío, enigmáticamente perverso y terriblemente
fascinador para las mujeres‖ (Conde de Siruela 49). Likewise, Leonard Wolf
expresses an almost word-for-word characterization of Lord Ruthven as ―a
nobleman, aloof, brilliant, magnetic, fascinating to women, and coolly evil. Except
that he is a British lord, he is an absolute precursor of Stoker's Dracula‖ (Wolf
―Abraham Stoker‖). In Bram Stoker‘s Dracula (1897), Jonathan Harker captures
the chilling account of viewing Count Dracula as he lay in his daytime tomb,
thereby providing us with a carefully observed physical description of an
archetypal male vampire:
There in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a
pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep, I
could not say which – for the eyes were open and stony, but without
the glassiness of death – and the cheeks had the warmth of life
through all their pallor, and the lips were as red as ever. But there was
no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart. I
bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain. He could
not have lain there long, for the earthy smell would have passed away
in a few hours. By the side of the box was its cover, pierced with holes
here and there. I thought he might have the keys on him, but when I
went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them, dead though they
were, such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my presence,
that I fled from the place (70-71).
Many a struggling nineteenth century gentleman would envy and strive to
mirror the literary vampire, at least in some regards. Literature‘s Lord Ruthven
and Count Dracula serve as character archetypes and present themselves in the
public domain as non-emotional businessmen, noble in dress and character,
brilliantly intelligent, charismatic with men, and alluring to women. Even in today‘s
society, these qualities exemplify some form of success. However, in the
patriarchal societies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries where
the man worked outside the home as the stereotypical protector and provider of
27
the family, such as in Agustini‘s Uruguay, these characteristics could determine
not only success for the man himself but for his entire household. On the other
hand, only these positive characteristics possessed by the vampire in the public
domain would be sought after. In general, most men would prefer not to lead the
life of the vampire behind closed doors. Within his private domain, the vampire
leads the life of the undead, as noted in the Dracula quote above. The male
vampire‘s reality is that he only partially exists. Only through preying on
weakened victims, as feminist critics could argue is the role of the man of the
house, does the vampire continue to survive.
The male figure of Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ is described in the first stanza
by the poetic voice as vampirically incapacitated by either sleep or death. This
indeterminate state between sleep and death is reminiscent of Stoker‘s scene
when Jonathan Harker encounters Count Dracula within his lair, as quoted
above. Thus the reader can assume that the male figure also represents the
vampire mentioned in the title. In ―El vampiro,‖ between the first and second
stanzas, the male figure is physically dominated by the female figure of the poetic
voice. In the third stanza, she wounds him in the heart. In the fourth stanza, she
questions him, ―¿Por qué fui tu vampiro de amargura?‖ (15). If indeed the male
figure is the vampire of the poem, it makes sense that this female figure would
have fallen victim to him, just as Lucy Westenra did with Stoker‘s Count Dracula.
Under scrutiny of the poetic voice, the male figure occupies a subservient
role typically played by or placed upon the female in patriarchal societies;
subservience to the male being the stereotypical role of the female, especially
within the confines of a room in the household. Therefore, although Agustini‘s
male figure acts as an exemplary example of Stoker‘s sleeping Dracula, if his
character is also that of the vampire it would mean that the male figure is not only
subservient but also dependent upon the female figure. While it may seem ironic
that the powerful male vampire figure should be subservient to a female figure, it
is the way of the vampire. The vampire relies on the blood of others in order to
survive. Therefore, without the blood of his victim he would cease to exist. In
more symbolic terms, the vampire is the ―persecutor‖ or ―eater‖ and the female is
28
the ―victim‖ or ―eaten‖ (―Vampires‖). Although he occupies the role of the
predator, he is dependent upon her for survival. She, on the other hand, would
likely lead a better life (at least she would lead some sort of life) without him. In
this way, Agustini reverses society‘s stereotypical roles of the male and female
figures within the household. It is the female persona that possesses the power
within this room, not the male. That is, so long as she is still human. If however,
he has seduced her and passed on the vampire gene so to speak, then she too
has been cast in the role of victim. Thus, the male figure would act as the creator
in the poem by giving birth to the female vampire. However, all we know for
certain is that as the poem ends the body of the male figure remains lying in the
room, in the same submissive position generally reserved for a woman.
Lying quietly in his bed, the male figure exemplifies Stoker‘s sleeping
Dracula. In this way, Agustini may be reenacting the prototypical actions of
vampire slaying. Note, however, the male-female role reversal. Whereas in
Dracula men were selected to carry out the deed of hunting the vampires Lucy
Westenra and Count Dracula, in this poem Agustini casts a female figure in the
role of vampire slayer.
As a vampire, the male figure reneges on his role as the stereotypical
male provider generally viewed in a positive manner. Draining the life from his
female victim, transforming her into a vampire, and forcing her from the world of
the living into the world of the undead provide her with the ―self-destructive
phenomenon‖ of vampires (―Vampires‖). In this way he provides, or rather infects,
the female with the vampire‘s infinite, bloodthirsty passion that leaves her always
desiring more. This ―self-destructive phenomenon‖ is in effect the end of life as
she knows it and the beginning of the unceasing need to fend for herself by
preying upon others. In this respect, the stereotypical male-female roles of
society remain intact, although the male‘s role as a provider could arguably be
described as either wicked or sexually perverse - wicked in that he has really
provided her with nothing but infinity in the realm of the undead and sexually
perverse in that he physically satisfied himself by puncturing and biting her,
sucking and taking her vital fluids for himself.
29
The before mentioned archetypal characteristics of the vampire do not
specify a necessary sex for the vampire. That is, symbolists do not identify the
vampire image as specifically male or female. Therefore, this opens the doorway
to the possibility of the poetic voice‘s female figure acting as the poem‘s titled
vampire character – thus, a female vampire character. Crossing this threshold
into the land of the female vampire we find ourselves in a much smaller room,
occupied by substantially fewer characters than that of the literary male vampire.
The names of archetypal female vampires in literature do not slip so easily
from the tongue as do those for the male genre, such as Lord Ruthven and
Count Dracula. While many female characters throughout history have displayed
vampiric characteristics, most have been described as demons rather than
vampires. Three of the most renowned female characters possessing vampirelike qualities would have to be Lilith, Lamia, and Medusa. Derived from Jewish
folklore, Lilith was Adam‘s first wife and after separating from him due to
irreconcilable differences, was described as a child killer. From classical
mythology is the tale of Lamia, a child killer as well, but also a seducer of young
men ―in order to devour them‖ (―Lamia‖). Finally from Greek mythology, Medusa
was a murderess to all who looked upon her. The snakes of her hair can
represent the biting vampire with piercing fangs, while Perseus‘ chopping of her
head imitates the action of a vampire slayer. Overall the difference between the
archetypal male and female vampires is the portrayal of the female as purely
demonic, completely devoid of any characteristics that could be deemed positive
by general society. For example, Lord Ruthven and Count Dracula in particular
exude a sense of evil, but also that of gentlemen. In regards to the female
vampire, let us revisit the three femme fatales in Stoker‘s Dracula. From their
introduction in the salon of Count Dracula‘s castle peering over Jonathan Harker
to the conclusion where they appear again to Mina Harker, they are featured only
in inhuman, demonic terms, causing fear and desirous dread in those who bear
witness to their existence.
In social terms, especially in a patriarchal society such as Agustini‘s late
nineteenth and early twentieth century Uruguay, the female is bound to the home
30
and children, her stereotypical image being that of a biologically sexual receiver,
receiving that which the male provides. In addition, she is viewed as the life-giver
and nurturer of the home. Therefore, the ideal woman was cast as a maternal
figure. The character of the female vampire perhaps caused a greater sensation
of fear than the male vampire due to her breaking with this maternal role.
Remember that female vampires as undead beings do not reproduce and
therefore do not care for their young. In a wicked sense of irony, the female
vampire kills children rather than produces them. George Eliot suggests the
legitimacy of women being portrayed as female vampires, proposing that women
are presented with no other choice in nineteenth century society than to act as
―parasites.‖ Due to their being ―prevented from contributing to the society in
which they live, idle, helpless, and destructive, many women come to resemble
vampires, who suck vitality from those around them‖ (Senf 130). Thus the
threatening portrayal of females as vampires is a representation of social threats
in reality.
In the first stanza, the female figure appears to fit the mold of the female
nurturer as she looks after the incapacitated male. One could imagine these two
characters as a stereotypical couple, the wife mourning the loss of the family‘s
sole provider. This loss, however, would lead to the eventual reversal of
stereotypical roles. For example, in the poem, the surface story that first emerges
is that of a lost love, a woman mourning for a man. Therefore, within the first
stanza, Agustini has cast two gendered personas, one male and one female,
within the stereotypical roles of the times. However, as the poem progresses
from the first to the third stanza the nurturing female is transformed into a
carnivorous predator, devouring the male figure as her prey. Seemingly, the
female figure who lingers over the mute male figure before biting and killing him
would represent the power figure. However, her power is only skin-deep. That is
to say, she only dominates the male physically. Otherwise, she is unable to
penetrate him because he gives her no response. Agustini represents her female
persona as a stereotypical male figure in society, towering over a submissive and
weaker sex. The female figure as a vampire, although successful in gaining
31
newfound power over the male, fails to fulfill her stereotypical biological and
socio-cultural, maternal roles. For example, consider the wound that she inflicts
on the male figure in the third stanza as ―herido mortalmente‖ (10). Here the
female vampire is not a provider of life, as is the ideal in human society, but a
destroyer of life. In other words, rather than nurturing the male figure, she
commits murder. And although this murder could be defined as a nurturing act if
perceived in the same light as Stoker‘s men who release Miss Lucy into death,
Agustini‘s poetic persona appears to grow in anguish rather than affection.
Agustini reverses the traditional roles of the male vampire as the
―persecutor‖ or ―eater‖ and the female figure as the ―victim‖ or ―eaten‖
(―Vampires‖), just as in Munch‘s Vampire or Burne-Jones‘s The Vampire
paintings, the female vampire is the ―eater‖ and the male victim is the ―eaten.‖
Thus reversing society‘s stereotypical roles within this dark room of poetry, the
male depends upon the female for survival.
The vampire, of the ―El vampiro‖ title, is either the male or the female
figure of Agustini‘s poem. Because the archetypal characteristics of the vampire
do not specify a necessary sex for the vampire, it could be either. If the male
figure is the vampire, then he reneges on his role as the stereotypical male
provider, generally viewed in a positive manner. If the female figure is the
vampire, then she reneges on her stereotypical, maternal role of being bound to
the home and children.
Throughout the poem, the male figure lies quietly under the scrutiny of the
poetic voice. In this way, he mirrors Stoker‘s sleeping Count Dracula, but also
under the gaze of the female he occupies the subservient, stereotypical role of
the nineteenth century female. The female figure, on the other hand, physically
feeds upon the male figure thereby also fulfilling the role of the vampire. The
male figure continues to possess a psychological hold upon the female figure,
much like Count Dracula maintains over Mina Harker, thereby casting the female
figure as a victim as well. In fact, both the male and female figures possess
characteristics of both the vampire and victim roles. As a vampire, the male is
emotionally powerful but as a victim, he is physically submissive. The opposite is
32
true in regards to the female figure. As a vampire, she is physically powerful and
as a victim, she is emotionally submissive.
Therefore, I propose that Agustini‘s male and female personas each
possess vampire characteristics. When placed together in this scene of domestic
captivity, only then do they create the whole character of the vampire alluded to
in the title.
Plot in Delmira Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖
Much of the conflict in Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ can be visualized in Munch‘s
paintings, such Vampire and Death in the Sick Room. The concept of isolation
within a population, mentioned in regards to the atmosphere of the poem, also
plays a key part in moving the action along in the poem. Just as in Munch‘s
Vampire, a female figure is depicted hovering over a male figure. However,
although they exist within the same room and are even in physical contact, there
is still a defined sense of separation between the two figures.
Agustini includes a defining line of separation in her poem in regards to
this theme of isolation, much like Munch‘s placement and portrayal of figures in
his Death in the Sick Room. Just before the fourth stanza, Agustini includes a
typed line of asterisks that visually separates the final stanza from the others.
This line marks the separation between the climax and resolution of the poem. In
the second stanza, the conflict between the male and female figures increases
when she bites him. However, in the third stanza the tension climaxes when
physically assaults his injury with the intent to wound him further. In the final
stanza, the poetic voice seems to step away from the male figure and, rather
than continuing with her physical attack, resorts to questioning him. In this way,
she chooses words as her final weapon. However, although her questions are
directed at him, it seems as though she is challenging herself to answer the
questions as well. Thus the poetic voice directs her verbal and physical assault
on the male figure in the first three stanzas before turning on herself in the final
stanza and questioning her own position or role in regards to him. The physical
33
crossing of the border by the reader marks this shift in dialogue; when the poem
crosses the visual border, the examination of the dialogue crosses from an
exterior to the interior exploration of the poetic voice. When the poem crosses
over into the final stanza the poetic voice simultaneously changes her
perspective from the male figure to herself and her own domestic situation.
Reminiscent of James Joyce‘s celebrated moment of epiphany in his
short stories, an intuitive moment of enlightenment occurs in the final stanza. It is
here that both the reader and the poetic voice determine that the female figure is
a vampire. This being said, the identity of the male figure as a vampire also
remains a viable option in light of his corresponding characteristics with vampire
lore and literature. Actually, it is from the history of the vampire that we are able
to determine that Agustini is portraying both the male and female figures as
vampires in ―El vampiro.‖ The crutch of this conclusion is dependent upon one
line of the poem, this being ―¿Por qué fui tu vampiro de amargura?‖ (15). Up until
this statement by the poetic voice, the male figure has been depicted as the
vampire, much like Stoker‘s Count Dracula when Jonathan Harker discovers him
within his bedroom tomb. However, the poetic voice‘s claim to be a vampire
solidifies the male figure‘s status as a vampire as well. Because she is ―your
vampire,‖ the ―your‖ points to the male figure as that of the victimizer and the
poetic voice as the victim. Because the male figure is first portrayed with vampiric
characteristics, one can assume a sort of chronology in regards to this.
Therefore, if the male figure was a vampire first, then the female figure was likely
victimized as his prey. Through this process of victimization, the female would
have succumbed to the male vampire‘s seduction thereby transforming herself
into a vampire as well. It is in this final moment of the poem that the poetic voice
recognizes and questions her vampiric existence. She claims herself to be a
vampire, yet it is through his victimization of her that she has been transformed.
Within this dark room of Agustini, the male and female vampires are held
prisoner by their own fears. The vampire represents the fear of something
different, the fear of crossing an unknown frontier. The male in his incapacitated
position and the female in her prominent position of power are fearful of their own
34
notions of themselves, of each other, and of society. Just as in Munch‘s Vampire,
Agustini masks the identity of these two subjects. There are no names or
identifying characteristics other than the most general observations. This thus
symbolizes not only that these personas could represent any figure in society,
but that these two figures do not even know themselves. Locked away in this
dark room together and positioned in the reverse of their stereotypical malefemale roles, they are unsure of themselves. The male is submissive to the
female while the female physically dominates the male. In any patriarchal
society, this scene would be perceived with unease.
Also contrary to expectation, Agustini gives voice to a female character
who questions her position. Not only does she stay in the room with the male
figure, choosing the instinctual fight over flight, hers is the only voice in the poem.
In contrast to Stoker‘s Dracula, where Jonathan Harker relays his encounter with
the Count through a journal where he flees from the scene, the poetic voice
voices a concern in regards to the situation and asks the male figure questions
directly – although they remain unanswered.
A female vampire with a voice is reminiscent of the orating New Woman of
the nineteenth century. Her position as a speaker, challenging and questioning
the role of women within society, spread fear throughout society. In much the
same way, Agustini‘s poetic voice stands above the male figure (as would a New
Woman speaking from a stage above an audience) and questions him about her
role as his vampire. Note that even though the poetic voice has vocalized some
of her own thoughts, she continues to view her role within the room in regards to
his perspective. Overall, she searches not for her own answers, but for his.
A vampire coming lurking in the middle of the night is the imagined scene
after reading Agustini‘s title, ―El vampiro,‖ which presents the intrusion of a
vampire as the first concrete image of the poem. The second figure we encounter
is that of the poetic voice which likens herself to a mourner in the first stanza.
The poetic voice then introduces us to the male figure, who is at first perceived to
be the vampire. He is incapacitated throughout the poem and described like a
vampire resting in his lair. However, only if complete darkness falls upon the
35
poem, allowing him to rise from his tomb would he be able to intrude upon the
female. As the poem progresses the female figure takes on several stereotypical
vampire characteristics as well. First, she physically places herself in a superior
position above him and then bites him, wounding his heart. Then she savors the
sweet taste of his blood and even seems to gain strength from doing so. Her
increased strength and confidence coincides with the climaxing action and
tension of the poem. Therefore, the female figure becomes the unlikely intruder
by physically intruding upon the male figure like a vampire. She also intrudes
upon the silence of the room by thrusting her questions at him in the final stanza.
However, more than anything, she intrudes upon her own confidence and
knowledge of self-identity.
The tone of certainty present in the first three stanzas of ―El vampiro‖
dissipates into one of self-doubt within the fourth stanza. In addition, not only
does the tone of the poetic voice break down, so does the visual appearance of
the poem on the page. Gone are the classical four and six line stanzas.
Separated by a line of asterisks and three lines of nothing but questions, the
closure generally found within the final lines of a poem is replaced with
questions. Therefore, the ending of the poem does not bring any closure to the
reader or the poetic voice – only more questions. But perhaps this was Agustini‘s
intent, for inside each unanswered question lies the need to discover the answer.
Conclusion
Chapter 1 is a close-study of Delmira Agustini‘s poem ―El vampiro‖ from
her Los cantos de la mañana collection. Specific elements studied in detail
include the atmosphere, setting, plot, character, structure, and theme, in addition
to historical-biographical considerations, symbolism, the speaker‘s voice, and the
overall emotional impact of the poem. Also included are visual comparisons that
reference the paintings Vampire and The Vampire by Edvard Munch and Philip
Burne-Jones, respectively. Literary references are made to Bram Stoker‘s
Dracula as well.
36
With a sense of hopelessness and dread, Agustini‘s poetic persona rebels
against her emotionally and physically claustrophobic captivity. However, much
like the young female in Munch‘s Death in the Sick Room, she is unable to look
beyond her present circumstance and withdraw herself from this interior
chamber. Agustini focuses on the extreme solitude felt by her poetic persona,
although ironically, she is not alone. This phenomenon I refer to as a ―paradox of
isolation within a population,‖ where the characters of the vampire and his/her
victim tend to dictate an individual, solitary mood within the works of art in which
they are both present.
Agustini circumvents some of our classic expectations and presents a new
perspective through which to receive the twentieth century vampire. Looking
back to the eighteenth century, many men suffered from a type of ―male
castration anxiety‖ (Kahane 7) due in part to the image of the French
Revolutionary woman. Meanwhile, by the late nineteenth century the existing
patriarchal social structures were seemingly under attack by the effects of
industrialization. These abrupt changes awakened a sense of fear or anxiety ―of
being subject to forces beyond one‘s comprehension or control‖ (1). In the setting
and atmosphere of Munch‘s comparative work Vampire, I suggest that the color
imagery of black and red used by Munch is a reiteration that his female subject is
a representation of evil. Throughout a majority of his life, Munch maintained an
unnatural fear of women, thus providing more reason for Munch to surround his
femme fatal in a symbolic sea of black. By the end of the nineteenth century, a
new breed of woman was born. Different to the passive, maternal role presented
as the foundation of a woman‘s social identity, this new woman represented a
powerful woman - a woman worthy of the fear displayed in Munch‘s Vampire.
This new female-phenomenon, this donning of the mask of the New
Woman, affected the representative female role in the world of art, fiction and
poetry. Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ and Munch‘s Vampire exemplify the New Womanchange that was taking hold of the domestic, public, and art spheres. Due to
changing societal circumstances, both works illustrate a resulting sense of
37
unease. By setting their subjects in a position of unfamiliar power, they exhibit an
atmosphere infused with a distinctive, new kind of fear.
Through various juxtapositions of light and dark, and connotations of good
and evil, life and death, etc., Agustini keeps within the literary tradition of Horace
Walpole‘s gothic narratives. In particular, the gothic title ―El vampiro‖ implies an
unsettling setting for her poem, such as the rising from the ruins of medieval
castles with dungeons, secret passages, and torture chambers that blossom
under the haunting rays of full moons at midnight. As the poem moves into the
first stanza, a sad sort of anguish penetrates the female‘s poetic voice and her
emotional stream of sorrow builds. Reflecting upon the silent body of the male
figure laid out in front of her in the fourth and final stanza, the poetic voice‘s
reflection turns inward in contemplation of her own life and readers witness an
increasing fear of self within an increasingly agitated interior. In addition,
Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ demonstrates just how a society‘s conflict can
devastatingly manifest itself within the interior of an individual.
In regards to this theme of isolation, Agustini chooses words as her final
weapon. In the fourth stanza, a line of asterisks visually separates the poetic
voice‘s final questions from the rest of the poem. However, although she directs
her questions to the male figure it seems as though she is challenging herself to
answer the questions as well. Thus, the poetic voice who has directed her verbal
and physical assaults on the male figure in the first three stanzas turns on herself
in the final stanza - questioning her own sense of self in regards to him. The
crutch of this conclusion is dependent upon one line of the poem ―¿Por qué fui tu
vampiro de amargura?‖ (15). In this final moment of the poem, the poetic voice
recognizes and questions her vampiric existence. She claims herself to be a
vampire, yet it is through his victimization of her that she has been transformed.
No names or identifying characteristics other than the most general
observations identify these poetic figures, thus symbolizing that these personas
could represent any figure in society and also that they may not even know
themselves. Locked away in this dark room together and positioned in the
reverse of their stereotypical male-female roles, they are unsure of themselves.
38
The male is submissive to the female while the female physically dominates the
male. The female figure becomes the unlikely power figure by physically intruding
upon the male figure in a vampiric fashion. She also intrudes upon the silence of
the room by thrusting her questions at him in the final stanza. However, more
than anything, she intrudes upon her own confidence and wavering knowledge of
self-identity.
39
CHAPTER 2
CONTRASTING VOICES OF THE FEMALE VAMPIRE IN POE,
DARIO, BAUDELAIRE, ROSSETTI, AND AGUSTINI
[The Gothic] should not be read as a form which passively replicates
contemporary cultural debates about politics, philosophy, or gender,
but rather reworks, develops, and challenges them.
Andrew Smith
Introduction
Chapter 2 surveys several classic works written by male authors that
precede Delmira Agustini‘s poem, ―El vampiro,‖ and determine the archetypical
characteristics of the nineteenth century female vampire character. Short stories
such as Edgar Allen Poe‘s ―Berenice,‖ ―Morella,‖ and ―Ligeia‖ and Rubén Darío‘s
―Thanatopia‖ are studied alongside poems by Charles Baudelaire such as ―Le
Vampire‖ and ―Les Metamorphoses de Vampire.‖ The double work by Dante
Gabriel Rossetti titled either Body‘s Beauty or Lady Lilith, a work consisting of
both a poem and painting, is also referenced, along with its connection to Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe‘s Faust. A close evaluation of these works reveals the
common characteristics associated with the female vampire by her male
creators. The conclusion of this chapter compares and contrasts these
commonalities to the female vampire presented in the poem of Delmira Agustini.
In 1976, Ellen Moers coined the term ‗Female Gothic‘ ―in order to
distinguish between male- and female-authored texts from the early part of the
Gothic tradition‖ (Smith 8). Elaborating upon this distinction is Angela Carter and
her collection of rewritten folk tales in The Bloody Chamber (1979). Within this
collection, Carter focuses on the ―gender narratives inherent to the tales collected
(and often rewritten) in the late seventeenth century.‖ In addition, ―this type of
40
self-conscious critical rewriting,‖ argues Andrew Smith, ―also makes visible one
of the most significant issues about the Gothic: that it should not be read as a
form which passively replicates contemporary cultural debates about politics,
philosophy, or gender, but rather reworks, develops, and challenges them‖ (8). It
is my argument that Agustini is doing just this.
In her poem ―El vampiro,‖ Agustini rewrites the role of the female vampire
and challenges the literary canon‘s characterization of this persona developed
primarily by male authors, thereby opening a debate in regards to the new role
that this character occupies within the late nineteenth century society. One of the
first canonical works about the female vampire is arguably Samuel Taylor
Coleridge‘s Christabel (1797), in which Geraldine vampirically seduces
Christabel. This story follows tradition in that vampires are generally depicted as
demonized monsters that feed upon the innocent, human victim. However, Smith
argues that ―Monsters are not straightforwardly just monsters, for example (as we
saw in Frankenstein): rather they illustrate the presence of certain cultural
anxieties that are indirectly expressed through apparently fantastical forms‖ (58).
Therefore, authors express a cultural anxiety through the female vampire. As
explored in Chapter 1, during the nineteenth century this anxiety is born from
woman‘s newfound power and roles in society.
The nineteenth century authors explored in this chapter tend towards a
misogynistic use of the female vampire, whereas the characterization that
Agustini develops in her poetic persona is much more complex. Agustini shies
away from the archetypal monster characterization, opting instead for a more
humane depiction complete with such differing emotions as love and hate.
This study will not try to take into account every literary female vampire
leading up to that of Agustini, but a small yet significant sampling from the male
dominated canon. However, the works studied in this chapter have not been
picked at random; rather they follow a thread of correlation - that correlation
mainly being the element of literary influence. At the head of this literary influence
is the American master of mystery and macabre, Edgar Allan Poe.
41
In the 1890s, some forty years after his death, journalists and master literary
artists alike were still writing about Poe. The Publishers‘ Circular of London
proclaimed Bram Stoker to be the new Poe of the decade (Fisher 28) while other
papers cited Poe as a reliable authority on the subject of premature burials which
occurred with frequency in his works. From the more canonical sphere, Victorian
poets such as Swinburne, Rossetti, and Patmore ―relished‖ the musical quality of
Poe while Decadent and Symbolist writers viewed him as a literary master (33).
Rossetti in particular is said to have been ―fascinated by the work of the
American writer‖ (―Rossetti‖). In addition, the French poet Baudelaire discovered
the work of Poe in 1847, and feeling ―overwhelmed by what he saw as the almost
preternatural similarities between the American writer's thought and temperament
and his own, he embarked upon the task of translation,‖ and these works today
are considered classics of French prose (―Baudelaire‖).
At the end of the nineteenth century, the renowned Rubén Darío of the
Spanish American Modernismo movement included Poe as one of his ―rare
ones‖ in his collection of critical essays Los raros (1893). Within this work, Darío
compares Poe to the Count of Lautréamont saying that Poe was more ―celeste‖
and Lautréamont more ―infernal‖ (Johnston 272). In 1919, the Edgar Allan Poe:
Poemas with a prologue by Darío was published in Montevideo, Uruguay. In the
prologue Darío praises Poe saying that his ―nombre pasará al porvenir al brillo
del nombre del poeta‖ and writes of ―el noble abolengo de Poe.‖ Also within this
prologue Darío mentions Poe‘s short story ―Ligeia,‖ specifying ―la narración de la
metempsícosis de Ligeia‖ (Poe Poemas). The term ―metempsícosis‖ is defined
by the Diccionario de la Lengua Española de la Real Academia as:
Doctrina religiosa y filosófica de varias escuelas orientales, y
renovada por otras de Occidente, según la cual las almas transmigran
después de la muerte a otros cuerpos más o menos perfectos,
conforme a los merecimientos alcanzados en la existencia anterior.
(―Metempsícosis‖)
Finally, in his ―Pórtico,‖ Darío comments that Agustini ―dice cosas
exquisitas que nunca se han dicho‖ (Agustini 223). And just as Darío changes
42
the Shakespearean phrase to ―that is a woman,‖ Agustini changes the male
created persona of the female vampire to that of a female-authored perspective,
thereby making it indeed possible – as Darío so eloquently stated – to say things
that have never been said.
Edgar Allan Poe‘s ―Berenice‖
A lighthearted, ―gorgeous and fantastic beauty‖ is transformed by ―a fatal
disease‖ (Poe, Edgar Allan Poe 226) in Edgar Allan Poe‘s short-story tale of
―Berenice‖ (1834). In what is presumably a large home, if not a mansion, due to
the presence of a house-staff, Poe‘s narrator and his cousin, Berenice, have
lived since childhood. The narrator has been plagued his entire life by an intense
mania of focusing on particular objects such as the flame of a lamp or the
repetition of word until the word itself becomes unrecognizable while Berenice,
once a girl of extraordinary beauty, begins to suffer and perish from an unnamed
disease – although Poe does relate it to epilepsy. Affected inside and out,
morally and physically, Berenice becomes as unrecognizable as the narrator‘s
repeated obsession with her teeth, until one morning she is found dead from an
epileptic seizure. That night the staff buries her, but the narrator remains in the
library. At least he thinks that he remained in the library. However, he recalls
taking part in some horrific act, but the details are too vague for him to remember
exactly. His eyes are drawn to a little box on a side table that does not belong
there, and as he wonders at this oddity, a servant creeps into the room and gains
his attention. He explains to the narrator how, together, the household staff went
to investigate the sound of woman‘s cry and when they arrived at the burial site,
they discovered that the grave had been uninterred and the body inside was still
alive. Then it is brought to the narrator‘s attention the dirtied condition of his
clothing and the presence of a muddied spade. The narrator grabs the box from
the table but it slips from his hand and breaks into pieces on the floor. From the
box scatter thirty-two small, white teeth.
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Poe describes the demise of Berenice as due to a ―Disease – a fatal
disease –
[which] fell like the simoon upon her frame, and, even while I gazed
upon her, the spirit of change swept over her, pervading her mind, her
habits, and her character, and, in a manner the most subtle and
terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person! Alas! the destroyer
came and went, and the victim – where was she? I knew her not – or
knew her no longer as Berenice.‖ (Edgar Allan Poe 227)
Thus, as the narrator notes later on in regards to her apparent death, ―Berenice
was – no more‖ (231). Pale with lifeless eyes, ―seemingly pupil-less,‖ and a
―glassy stare,‖ Berenice looked out from her altered body. However, it is her
shrunken lips that attract the attention of the narrator, particularly in her ―smile of
peculiar meaning.‖ In this strange smile, the narrator notices the change in her
teeth and these then become the new focus, or object, of his obsession: ―The
teeth! – the teeth! – they were here, and there, and every where, and visibly and
palpably before me; long, narrow, and excessively white, with the pale lips
writhing about them, as in the very moment of their first terrible development‖
(230).
According to J.E. Cirlot, teeth symbolize the means of defense of the
―inner man,‖ whereas the eyes act as the defense of the spirit. Therefore, the
loss of one‘s teeth implies a loss in life. Anthropological studies show that
primitive man would ornament himself with the teeth of conquered animals, thus
representing his triumph over the beast (―Teeth‖). The narrator in Poe‘s tale, in
fact, goes somewhat mad in his desire to possess them. Through his conquering
of Berenice and possession of her teeth, the narrator hoped to regain his peace
and reason (Poe, Edgar Allan Poe 231).
Over the transformation of Berenice, the narrator suffered from both grief
and fear. Much like Jonathan Harker in Stoker‘s Dracula when approached by
the three female vampires in Count Dracula‘s salon, Poe‘s narrator experiences
a similar scare when surprised by Berenice one evening in the library. The
encounter he describes as follows:
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She spoke no word, and I – not for worlds could I have uttered a
syllable. An icy chill ran through my frame; a sense of insufferable
anxiety oppressed me; a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and
sinking back upon the chair, I remained for some time breathless and
motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her person (Poe, Edgar Allan
Poe 230).
In response to her horrifying condition, the narrator proposed to marry her ―in an
evil moment‖ (229) although he had never loved her. Before they could marry,
however, Berenice fell into an epileptic trance and was buried alive. After the
burial, the narrator unearthed her casket and stole her teeth. Recovering from
her epileptic unconsciousness, she screamed and, once discovered by the
household help, the violation against her was apparent – someone had removed
her teeth.
Emaciated from disease, buried alive, and robbed of her teeth, she was a
living nightmare. However, no matter the repetitive violations against her, the
narrator never perceives Berenice as a victim. Through to the end, she is viewed
as a dreadful creature while the male narrator, a cause of violation, remains in a
sympathetic light.
Edgar Allan Poe‘s ―Morella‖
Poe tells the tale of another loveless marriage in ―Morella‖. In this story,
the male narrator admittedly marries Morella not for love, but for passion. Morella
was a student of early German literature‘s mystical writings, and he followed her
example. He would listen to her voice for hours until its musicality was no longer
enjoyable, but intolerable. Eventually Morella falls ill and begins to physically fade
away. On her deathbed, she declares to the narrator that she knows he never
loved her. However, she threateningly promises that he will love her in death
saying, ―whom in life thou didst abhor, in death thou shalt adore‖ and that his
―days shall be days of sorrow‖ (Poe, Edgar Allan Poe 236). With her last breath
she gives birth to their child, a girl. The narrator loves her tremendously but also
45
fears the resemblance of the child to her mother. For ten years he keeps her
hidden away from society, not even giving her a name. When the notion comes
to him to baptize her, he must choose a name for her. At the baptism many
names pass through his head, but the one that slips from his mouth is that of her
mother, Morella. At the mention of this name the narrator hears a voice whisper,
―I am here!‖ (238). The child, now blessed with the name of her mother,
immediately dies at the site of the baptism. When the narrator goes to bury her in
the family tomb he is struck with the absurdity of the situation and laughs, for as
he lays the second Morella down to rest he sees that the body of the first Morella
is gone.
In the gradual death of his wife Morella, the narrator notes in regards to
her appearance the following:
In time, the crimson spot settled steadily upon the cheek, and the blue
veins upon the pale forehead became prominent; and, one instant, my
nature melted into pity, but, in the next, I met the glance of her
meaning eyes, and then my soul sickened and became giddy with the
giddiness of one who gazes downward into some dreary and
unfathomable abyss.‖ (Poe, Edgar Allan Poe 236)
Everything about Morella seemed wrapped up in some sort of melancholy. Her
eyes held a meaning unknown to him. Only in her final vow do we witness a
reciprocal hatred to his. For during her final months the narrator, frustrated by his
wife‘s lingering ailment, wished for her death. In answer to his wife‘s premonition,
the narrator‘s frustration lives on in the birth of his daughter, for in her similarity to
her mother he finds ―a worm that would not die‖ (238).
The idea of identity is a repeated theme and worries the narrator. He says
that of reason and consciousness ―it is this which makes us all to be that which
we call ourselves – thereby distinguishing us from other beings that think, and
giving us our personal identity which at death is or is not lost forever‖ (Poe, Edgar
Allan Poe 235). After Morella‘s death but in realization of her prophecy, the
narrator sees in his beloved child‘s smile that of his dead wife. In regards to this,
he states ―For that her smile was like her mother‘s I could bear; but then I
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shuddered at its too perfect identity‖ (238). Therefore, if identity is that which
makes us ourselves, is Poe not insinuating here the reincarnation of the wife
Morella in the child? And if the wife‘s identity, that being her reason and
consciousness, exists in the child‘s smile, does that not mean that Morella herself
is the child?
A mother fulfilling a curse against a husband through a child is nothing
new. Take for example the tales of Lilith in Jewish folklore. When Lilith left Adam,
she swore a curse against all of Adam‘s future children. Even though Lilith
herself was not reincarnated in Adam‘s future children, the fear of her curse
followed and caused superstition for centuries. Therefore, Lilith‘s identity became
that of her curse. In the same way, beyond inherited characteristics, the narrator
identifies his daughter with the curse of Morella and in this way never allows his
wife to completely die.
Edgar Allan Poe‘s ―Ligeia‖
In his short story ―Ligeia‖ (1838), Poe tells a tale of two marriages – one of
love and one of loneliness. The first marriage is that of the narrator to his true
love, Lady Ligeia. She was learned and beautiful with a musical voice, and her
family dated back to ancient times, although he never knew her paternal name.
Within her exotic beauty there was a strangeness which he could not specifically
identify, although he knew it was in the expression that she had in her black
eyes. Those eyes, notes the narrator, held such a passion as he had never seen
in another woman, a passion that both ―delighted and appalled‖ him (Poe, Edgar
Allan Poe 265). She had a wide range of knowledge, much more than any other
man or woman, including languages, science, and metaphysics. Eventually she
becomes ill, but fights against death even more so than her beloved husband.
The narrator notes ―the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled with the
Shadow‖ and ―her wild desire for life‖ (267). One night she had him repeat some
verses of poetry she had written. Here are but a few of these verses:
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…Mimes, in the form of God on high… Flapping from out their Condor
wings / Invisible wo! / That motley drama! – oh, be sure / It shall not be
forgot! / With its Phantom chased forevermore, / By a crowd that seize
it not, / Through a circle that ever returneth in / To the self-same
spot… But see, amid the mimic rout, / A crawling shape intrude! / A
blood-red thing that writhes from out / The scenic solitude! / It writhes!
– it writhes! – with mortal pangs / The mimes become its food, / And
the seraphs sob at vermin fangs / In human gore imbued. (268-69)
After his recitation of these verses, she dies at midnight. In several months time,
he moves to a desolate part of England in order to match his interior feelings to
that of his physical surroundings. The only luxury he allows himself is in the
opulent decoration of the bedroom in his new home. It is here that, for reasons
even unknown to him, the narrator embarks upon his second marriage. His
second wife is ―the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of
Tremaine‖ (270). She did not love him and he hated her. In fact, the narrator says
that he remembers more of the details of the bedroom than of the Lady Rowena.
Consumed in a constant state of opium visions, his mind returns to Lady Ligeia
and he calls out to her, invoking her return. In their second month of marriage,
Lady Rowena falls ill and complains of sounds and movements in the bedroom
that the narrator does not at first perceive. Eventually, however, he feels an
invisible presence in the room and sees footprints crossing the carpet to his
wife‘s bedside. Then he sees drops of a red liquid fall from the air into Lady
Rowena‘s cup just before she drinks from it. Soon after his witnessing this event,
Lady Rowena‘s condition worsens and three days later she dies. The next night,
while watching over the body of his enshrouded wife, the narrator reminiscences
about his first wife, Lady Ligeia. Under his watch, the corpse seems to come
alive at times, flushing in the cheeks and neck but then returning to a marble
white. This continues until dawn and the narrator is still unsure of his perceptions
until the corpse is unmistakably seen to ―struggle with some invisible foe‖ (276)
before rising from the bed and walking into the middle of the room. When the
undead body opens her eyes the narrator exclaims, ―these are the full, and the
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black, and the wild eyes – of my lost love – of the lady – of the LADY LIGEIA!‖
(277).
Poe implements various elements of the vampire into this short story. To
begin with, the background of Lady Ligeia is very vague. Her name and place of
origin are unknown, however, her family line can be traced back to ancient times.
Also Lady Ligeia‘s vast knowledge of subjects points to someone who has lived
more than a normal lifetime. In addition, her desire to live and the special
expression that she holds in her eyes are reminiscent of a stereotypical vampire
as well. In particular, the poem that she recites before her death contains specific
vampire characteristics. Elements encountered after Lady Ligeia‘s death and
later attributed to her carry a vampiric connotation too. The psychological torture
caused to Lady Rowena by sounds and movement in her bedroom chamber,
especially at night, the blood-like presence of a fluid, and the torment Lady
Rowena suffers in her fight between life and death are all characteristics of a
victim of vampirism. Finally, in the end of the story, Lady Ligeia appears from
within the body of Lady Rowena, and the vampire‘s life after death characteristic
- or existence as an undead creature – comes to life.
In 1967, Klaus Lubbers called for an interpretation of the characters
included in Lady Ligeia‘s poem (Lubbers 379). This poem, however, was written
by Poe and published previously under the title ―The Conqueror Worm.‖ Poe
included the poem within this short story later, attributing it to Lady Ligeia. Within
this poem many characteristics of the vampire are present, including elements
relating to humanity, the undead, life, and death. For example, the first
characters presented by Poe for interpretation are the Mimes who, in the form of
God and therefore based on a Biblical interpretation, are human. However, these
human forms are also endowed with the wings of a Condor, a type of vulture.
Keeping in mind that vultures prey on carcasses, this does not mean that they
are representatives of death. Actually, due to their appetite for dying flesh they
carry a symbolic connotation of life. Symbolically, vultures act as ―a regenerative
agency for the life forces contained in decomposing matter and refuse of all sorts
from the very fact that it lived off carrion and filth.‖ In other words, by ―devouring
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corpses and restoring life, [they] symbolized the cycle of death and life in a
ceaseless series of transmutations‖ (―Vulture‖).
Another ―series of transmutations‖ that comes to mind is that of the
vampire. The mere process through which vampirism exists in based on the
ceaseless metamorphoses of humans into vampires. The continuation of a
vampire‘s existence thereby solidifies the continuous feeding cycle between the
living and the undead. So long as a vampire is in need of blood, humans will fall
victim to him or her. And so long as vampires continue feeding upon humans,
their prey will continue to evolve into the victimizers, or vampires, themselves.
With this understanding of metamorphic symbolism, this leads directly into Poe‘s
next image of the Phantom. Forever chased but never captured, the Phantom
may represent either life or death. However, based on the circumstances of the
poem it is most likely that the Phantom represents life. Due to a Condor‘s
similarities to a vampire, such as cloaking themselves in black and dining on
motionless prey, the Mimes embody these same vampiric characteristics. Thus
the combination of Poe‘s first two images of the poem are of the Mimes that
appear in human form but with Condor wings while chasing the Phantom of life.
Further interpretation reveals these images to be of vampire-like creatures who
were once human but have passed on into the world of the undead and are
forever chasing life but cursed to never seizing it. Rather than regaining life,
these creatures cyclically return to the infinite world of the undead. The third
character that Poe introduces is the Worm. This character more so than the
others ―seems to have presented difficulties,‖ Lubbers notes (Lubbers 379).
Some critics such as Arthur Hobson Quinn, author of Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical
Biography, have compared the Worm to ―a symbol of the Serpent, the spirit of
evil‖ (379). To be sure, a worm is equatable to a serpent in numerous physical
aspects, however, this does not necessarily mean that the Worm will take on the
Biblical connotation of evil as readily. Also in regards to this, Lubbers argues in
his article that
this contention cannot well be refuted from the evidence of the poem
alone. Yet the context of ―Ligeia‖ into which Poe placed it – the motto,
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the heroine‘s desire for life, her significant question in the middle of
the story together with the revivification scene at the end – would
seem to make it abundantly clear that the author was not thinking of
Satan but of personified Death (379).
What can be inferred from the closed context of the poem is that the
Worm is representative of an evil persona of some sort. This becomes evident
when ―the seraphs sob at vermin fangs / In human gore imbued‖ (269). As
creatures of Heaven, the seraphs exemplify God‘s good characteristics.
Therefore, if the action of the Worm was one of good intent then the seraphs
would not cry because of it. This leads one to believe that the two opposite forces
of good and evil are present within the poem. Focusing outside of the poem itself
to the literature of the seventeenth century, Lubbers reminds us that ―the
traditional metaphor of the world as a stage had been filled with the Elizabethan
scheme of creation from top to middle: God, the angels, man.‖ In Poe‘s poem, he
argues, ―the new order is: the Conqueror Worm, ‗vast formless things,‘ and
mimes‖ (378). So Poe has placed the Conqueror Worm in the traditional position
of God, thereby relinquishing the world‘s powers to the Worm. It is only through
such a radical change in traditional worldly powers that the idea behind Lady
Ligeia‘s question repeated three times throughout the course of the short story
could be realized. Again expanding the interpretive perspective to the whole of
Poe‘s short story, the ―it‖ in the question ―be it not once conquered?‖ most likely
refers to death, due to Lady Ligeia‘s tormented fight against it. So the Worm must
represent something more than the ―personified Death‖ as suggested by Lubbers
because of this shift in traditional powers. The Worm must be the conqueror of
―it,‖ hence Poe‘s previous title to the poem ―The Conqueror Worm‖. From the
godly and all-powerful position, the Worm is able to conquer death. In the final
part of the poem where Poe describes the Worm writhing ―with mortal pangs‖
(269), the adjective ―mortal‖ brings a sense of humanity to the Worm. From this,
one perceives that the Worm exhibits at least some human qualities. However,
keep in mind that ―the mimes become its food‖ through the Worm‘s use of fangs
penetrating their bodies (269). So the Worm exhibits vampire qualities, such as
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the penetrating of others‘ bodies with teeth in order to nourish itself, just as the
Mimes exhibit vampire qualities as well. In this case, however, the Worm is in the
all-powerful position and has the ability to conquer all other creatures. Therefore,
through the perspective of the Worm‘s humanity and remembering Lady Ligeia‘s
powerful desire for life displayed before her death, it is the resurrected Lady
Ligeia that represents the Worm‘s something more than ―personified Death,‖
because in the end it is she who has overcome the ―it‖ or death.
The moving corpse of Lady Rowena could fill Lubbers‘ declaration of
death personified within the poem and the vampiric return from the dead of Lady
Ligeia may be perceived as Quinn‘s evil spirit; however, the power that Lady
Ligeia‘s spirit possesses holds more significance than either of these two
characterizations. It is her desire and the fighting spirit of Lady Ligeia that is The
Conqueror Worm. Through her restless willpower, and perhaps encouraged by
the ceaseless summonses from her husband, Lady Ligeia answered the question
– and the answer is yes. Yes, ―it‖ can be conquered at least once. That is, death
can be conquered.
Lady Ligeia is able to conquer death because ―the dead are not wholly
dead to consciousness‖ (Pruette 378). To Poe‘s narrator, the dead Lady Ligeia
was always more alive to him than Lady Rowena ever was, even when standing
beside him on their wedding day. However, was it really Lady Ligeia that the
narrator called out to or was it an idealized woman figure that he attached to her
memory? According to Lorine Pruette in reference to Poe:
His nature demanded the adoration and approval of ‗woman,‘ rather
than sexual conquests, and he worshiped in his poems a feminine
idealization to which he ascribed various names. These women are
never human; they are not warm flesh and blood, loving, hating or
coming late to appointments – they are simply beautiful lay figures
around which to hang wreaths of poetical sentiments. His emotional
interest lay in himself, rather than in outer objects; he wished to be
loved, rather than to love (380).
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So after so many nights of calling out to his beloved Lady Ligeia, when
she finally yet inexplicably does appear standing before him he appears to be
more horrified than thankful. Her eyes which at the beginning of the story he
describes as causing him to feel both ―delighted and appalled,‖ he describes
simply in the end as ―wild‖ (Poe, Edgar Allan Poe 266). Therefore, still
overwhelmed by the loss of his first wife he glorifies her memory and pleads into
the surrounding air for her return. However, rather than desiring the actual return
of Lady Ligeia the narrator just needed time to complete the mourning process,
thereby making the narrator ―interested only in the inner conflict within his own
soul‖ (Pruette 380).
Darío‘s ―Thanatopia‖
Rubén Darío‘s short story ―Thanatopia,‖ a title derived from ―thanato-‖
which means ―death, chiefly in scientific words‖ (―Thanato-―), narrates the story of
a woman that is transformed into a vampire by her husband, John Leen, a
scientist. When their son, James Leen, was young his mother passed away and
he was sent by his father to a school in Oxford. During his studies, sometimes
late at night James thought that he heard his mother‘s voice calling to him,
―James‖ (Darío 261). After concluding his studies, his father desired that he
return to London to live with him and his new stepmother. The idea of a
stepmother reminds James of his own mother. He remembers her physical
appearance, her white skin and blond hair, and how she had been isolated and
abandoned by his father who spent all day and night in the laboratory. Arriving
back at the London mansion, James enters the great salon and sees the portrait
of his mother, a work by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Besides its being covered by a
veil, it is the only thing in the house that has not changed. Alone in his room,
James cries at the memory of his mother saying, ―madre, madrecita mía, my
sweet Lily‖ (262). That night his father comes to see him in his room and for the
first time James notices his eyes. He focuses on the fearful eyes of his father that
appear almost red. Then his father says to him, ―Vamos, hijo mío, te espera tu
madrastra. Está allá, en el salón.‖ In the salon, he approaches the woman that
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takes his hand and then he hears ―como si viniese del gran retrato, del gran
retrato envuelto en crespón, aquella voz del colegio de Oxford, pero muy triste,
mucho más triste: ‗¡James!‘‖ Then his father says, ―Esposa mía, aquí tienes a tu
hijastro, a nuestro muy amado James. Mírale, aquí le tienes; ya es tu hijo
también.‖ Her touch is cold, her skin pale, eyes dead, and there is an odor about
her which the narrator fixates on but does not go on to explain (presumably of
death but perhaps of roses and poppies, as depicted in the work of Rossetti).
Obeying her husband‘s order to look at her son, she turns to him and says in an
otherworldly voice, ―James, hijito mío, acércate; quiero darte un beso en la
frente, otro beso en los ojos, otro beso en la boca‖ (263). Nerves on end, to this
James screams and exclaims that he is going to leave and tell the world that his
father is ―un cruel asesino,‖ his mother is ―un vampiro,‖ and that his father has
married ―una muerta‖ (264). For these accusations, as we know from the
introduction to the story, his father will enter James into an insane asylum where
he will stay for five years.
Transformed into a vampire, the woman in this story is a creation of the
hands of a scientific father within his patriarchal home. She seems physically
submissive and responds unquestionably to his commands. For example, she
speaks to her son exactly as he instructs to do so. In all probability, this woman
represents the opposite of the first wife pictured in the portrait, Lily - just as Eve is
the opposite of the biblical Lilith, the first wife of Adam. According to folklore,
Lilith wanted to be equal to Adam, and for this, she was cast out of the Garden of
Eden. Later, Adam‘s second wife Eve was more submissive in comparison and in
this way was able to remain by his side in paradise.
Adam‘s first wife, Lilith, is portrayed similarly in this short story by Darío
and a poem-painting combination by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Darío references a
work by Rossetti when describing the portrait of the narrator‘s mother. In
addition, while remembering his mother, he recalls the physical appearance of
her fair skin and blond hair. At one point he even calls her by name, Lily. Each of
these elements, the physical appearance, the name Lily, and the portrait by
Rossetti, all act as clues as to the identity of a real work of art. Because of these
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clues, it is likely that Darío‘s fictional portrait is actually referencing Rossetti‘s
poem and painting called Body‘s Beauty, originally titled Lady Lilith. In the
painting, Rossetti pictures a fair-skinned lady brushing her reddish-blond hair
while admiring her reflection in a looking glass. To this painting, an
accompanying sonnet is inscribed in small letters in the lower right side of the
frame. In his poem, Rossetti refers to Eve as a ―gift‖ and Lilith as a ―witch‖
(Rossetti Archive). In addition, Lilith‘s tongue is compared to that of the snake
and her captivating powers over men to that of a spider‘s web. The second
stanza expresses her fatalistic powers over man, beginning with her scent.
Rossetti‘s Lilith possesses a floral scent of rose and poppy, an alluring scent
inescapable by man. The final four lines depict the death of an enchanted youth
by her hand.
As a classic femme fatal, the nameless stepmother of Darío is seductive
and bloodthirsty even though she appears to act solely on the commands of John
Leen, her husband. The actions that can be attributed to her are vampiric in
nature. To begin with, her voice sounds ―subterráneo‖ (Darío 263), and it is this
same voice that is attributed to the one calling to the narrator in the middle of the
night and echoing from his mother‘s portrait. Although the voice does not elicit
any sexual desires within the narrator, the voice seduces his memory to recall
the beautiful mother that he misses. In regards to her being bloodthirsty, consider
what she says to her son when she greets him. She endears him to come closer
to her in order that she may kiss him. Her request to kiss her son‘s forehead,
eyes, and mouth may sound sexually seductive, depending on context. Based in
a canonical literary context, her request sounds similar to that of Lucy Western in
Bram Stoker‘s Dracula, when confronted in the graveyard by her would-be
slayers. Lucy calls to her husband to come to her so that she might kiss him, but
the kiss that she offers is that of a vampire. Therefore, although the vampiric kiss
carries sexual overtones the main objective of the vampire is to gain strength
from his or her weakening victim. Finally, the odor that the narrator suggests is
emanating from his stepmother is likely to first be perceived as the smell of
death. However, in light of Rossetti‘s poem Body‘s Beauty, the smell could also
55
be attributed to that of a floral mixture of roses and poppies. If this was a
characteristic smell of his mother Lily, as it was for Rossetti‘s Lilith, then the fact
that this stepmother creature possessed not only her voice but also her smell
would provide sufficient evidence for the narrator‘s final claim.
Charles Baudelaire‘s ―Le Vampire‖ and ―Les Metamorphoses du Vampire‖
In his 1861 edition of Les Fleurs du mal, and specifically in the two poems
―Le Vampire‖ and ―Les Metamorphoses du Vampire,‖ Charles Baudelaire does
not stray far from the following pessimistic perception of woman:
The new woman is at first the object of man‘s vanity – a lovely,
costly bauble – but in time becomes an unnatural sex. The decadent
writers feel, some explicitly, many implicitly, that she is no longer
woman as nature meant her to be. She incarnates destruction rather
than creativity. She has lost the capacity for love, and with it her
function as wife and mother. The new heroine is malevolent. Decadent
men, themselves malignant, become even worse because of her. This
is woman as the French decadents perceive her (Ridge 353).
William Aggeler‘s 1954 translation of Baudelaire‘s ―The Vampire‖
expresses the hatred felt by the poetic voice toward the ―you‖ of the poem, or the
female vampire. He compares her to ―the stab of a knife‖ (1) and calls her an
―Infamous bitch to whom I'm bound / Like the convict to his chain‖ (7-8). He has
begged death to take him away from this woman, however, ―from her domination‖
(21) he cannot be freed (qtd. in Charles Baudelaire‘s Fleurs du Mal). This
woman, seemingly his wife, has changed like Miss Lucy in Bram Stoker‘s
Dracula. In the graveyard, Miss Lucy‘s admirers are horrified by her vampiric
transformation. Here Baudelaire expresses the same type of horror. The final two
lines of the poem suggest that the poetic voice‘s lover has transformed into an
evil creature, and it is hopeless to recover her former self.
―The Metamorphoses of the Vampire‖ expresses a similar transformation
in a woman as noted by her lover, the poetic voice. Summarizing a decadent
man‘s post-coital ponderings in regards to the woman lying beside him, this
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poem is divided into two stanzas, the first tells of desire and the second of dread.
In the first stanza of William Aggeler‘s 1954 translation, the woman is said to
move like a snake – an animal associated with evil and the vampire. In the third
line, ―her mouth red as strawberries‖ suggests some type of labial activity. Due to
the title of the poem, readers can suppose that the femme fatal has sucked the
blood of her victim. Line 14 mentions the ―biting kisses‖ of her lovers, therefore
suggesting the tendency for males to also act vampirically, once exposed to her
seduction. The final line of the first stanza states her proud assertion that ―angels
would damn themselves for me!‖ (16), thus suggesting that her innocent victims
are willing to condemn themselves to an eternal damnation, such as the neverending realm of the undead. The second stanza begins with the line ―When she
had sucked out all the marrow from my bones‖ (17). Besides the obvious sexual
connotation, other translations continue with the archetypal vampire-theme of the
poem – that being the female vampire stealing life from her male victim. George
Dillon‘s 1936 translation has the poetic voice state that ―I looked at morning for
that beast of prey / Who seemed to have replenished her arteries from my own‖
(22-23). Meanwhile Roy Campbell‘s 1952 translation describes the female as
―bloated with my lifeblood‖ (24) and Jacques LeClercq in 1958 writes of her
―Whose lusts my blood, drained dry, had satisfied‖ (24).
As these various examples quoted in Charles Baudelaire‘s Fleurs du Mal
confirm, no matter the translation of the poem, a misogynistic attitude from the
poetic voice toward the female is apparent. Conflict exists between the desire
and dread that the poetic voice feels for her. The power-figure of the poem is
unclear. Would it be the narrator who erases her existence from his conscious, or
is it the female whose existence tortures him so? Either way, Baudelaire appears
to write for an audience that would sympathize with this affliction. At the end of
the nineteenth century, women metamorphosed into powerful beings that society
in general either struggled or refused to understand.
57
Dante Gabriel Rossetti‘s Body’s Beauty
Within Rubén Darío‘s short story ―Thanatopia,‖ Darío references a portrait
by Rossetti. For various reasons, I believe that this referenced painting is, in
reality, a work by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Originally titled Lady Lilith but now
called Body‘s Beauty (1866), this painting is also accompanied by a sonnet
inscribed on the frame.
The painting depicts a fair-skinned young woman sitting and brushing her
long, strawberry blonde hair. Dressed in a loose-fitting white gown with a white
fur cape or blanket draped on her chair, the lady I propose to be Lilith is
surrounded by white roses and a pair of white candlesticks. In regards to this
color scheme, an article in the Rossetti Archive notes the following:
The white-on-white presentation of Lilith's figure weakens the
distinction between her body and her clothing, an effect heightened by
the relative lack of modelling in the areas of exposed flesh. The
breasts in particular have almost no definition at all so that the firmly
realized head and neck seem to dissolve into a lifeless field of
undifferentiated skin. This dead flesh contrasts sharply with Lilith's
hair, which is meticulously detailed and highlighted (Rossetti Archive).
This abundance of white skin and roses would seem quite angelic if it were not
for the splashes of red included in the painting. The gold of her long hair is tinted
with red, as are the smaller pink colored poppies to her right-hand side.
Meanwhile, on her left wrist, she wears a red ribbon of some sort and a red
foxglove is displayed in the foreground of the painting in a black vase. However,
the object most dominant and most saturated in this color of blood is her lips.
While Lilith admires herself in the handheld looking glass, the viewer‘s eye is
drawn across the painting to these sparse objects of color, until finally landing
upon her lips. The fullest concentration of color exists upon these lips, therefore
demanding extra attention. The focus on these red lips takes away from the
otherwise angelic persona presented by Lilith, thereby reminding us of the more
ravenous characteristics of the femme fatale. For example, the female vampire in
58
Edvard Munch‘s Vampire who entangles her male victim within the long strands
of her red hair, or the three femme fatales of Bram Stoker‘s Dracula,
characterized by their devilishly red lips.
In reference to Body‘s Beauty, Rossetti is said to have commented to a
friend the following:
You ask me about Lilith—I suppose referring to the picture-sonnet.
The picture is called Lady Lilith by rights (only I thought this would
present a difficulty in print without paint to explain it,) and represents a
Modern Lilith combing out her abundant golden hair and gazing on
herself in the glass with that self-absorption by whose strange
fascination such natures draw others within their own circle. The idea
which you indicate (viz: of the perilous principle in the world being
female from the first) is about the most essential notion of the sonnet
(Rossetti Archive).
In addition, before creating this painting-poem, Rossetti translated a portion of
Faust (1832) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Within his translation,
Mephistopheles of the poem recites the following stanza: ―Adam‘s first wife is
she. / Beware the lure within her lovely tresses, / The splendid sole adornment of
her hair! / When she succeeds therewith a youth to snare, / Not soon again she
frees him from her jesses‖ (Goethe).
Keeping within this misogynistic tone, the poem begins by describing the
Biblical Lilith as ―The witch he loved before the gift of Eve‖ (Rossetti Archive 2),
the ―he‖ of course referring to Adam in the Garden of Paradise. The rest of the
poem continues to elaborate on this description of Lilith as a classic femme fatal.
She is referred to as deceptive and a snake, thereby comparing her to the evil
snake of the Biblical garden. She is also likened to a spider, in that she weaves a
seductive spell around her victims in order to trap them. Other than these animal
references, other archetypal vampire characteristics are included as well. For
example, that Lilith never ages is noted, recalling the curse of the vampire who
must live forever in the realm of the undead, such as Count Dracula in Stoker‘s
Dracula. Finally, the death of Lilith‘s victim recounted in the images of a strangled
59
heart (14) and his ―straight neck bent‖ (13) reference classic vampire killing
techniques.
Conclusion
The characterization of the female vampire depends on her creator, that
is, a male or female author. As James B. Twitchell puts it, ―To the male she may
well be a masturbatory fantasy – voluptuous, enthralling, dangerous, enervating;
but to the female she is cruel, demonic, selfish, and hideous‖ (73). Delmira
Agustini rewrites the role of the female vampire in ―El vampiro‖ and challenges
the literary canon‘s mostly male characterization of this persona, thereby opening
a debate in regards to the new role that this character occupies within the late
nineteenth century society.
The nineteenth century male authors explored in this chapter tend towards
a misogynistic use of the female vampire, whereas the characterization that
Agustini develops in her poetic persona is much more complex. Agustini, shying
away from the archetypically monstrous characterization adopted by her male
predecessors, opts instead for a more humane depiction complete with such
differing emotions as love and hate, or adoration and angst. Her representation
offers a more complex characterization than that of Twitchell‘s female-authored
female vampire, described as ―cruel, demonic, selfish, and hideous‖ (Twitchell
73).
Edgar Allan Poe is the author of the vampiric short stories ―Berenice,‖
―Morella,‖ and ―Ligeia.‖ In ―Berenice,‖ the heroine is emaciated from disease,
buried alive, and robbed of her teeth. However, the narrator never perceives
Berenice as a victim. Instead, she is viewed as a dreadful creature while the
male narrator – the actual violator of Berenice – remains in a sympathetic light. In
―Morella,‖ the narrator marries not for love, but for passion. On her deathbed,
Morella declares to the narrator that she knows he never loved her. For ten years
after Morella‘s death, he keeps their child hidden away from society, not even
giving her a name. When it comes time to baptize her, he must choose a name
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for her. At the baptism he thinks of different names, but the one that slips from
his mouth is that of her mother, Morella. At the mention of this name the narrator
hears a voice whisper, ―I am here!‖ (Poe, Edgar Allan Poe 238). Finally, in
―Ligeia,‖ the family name and place of origin remain unknown in regards to the
femme fatal. Again, the narrator marries, the wife dies, and the wife returns from
the dead.
According to Twitchell, the narrator in each of these Poe stories ―is
explaining his relationship with a woman who is now dead, a woman who,
according to him, is responsible not only for her demise, but for his present
debilitation as well‖ (50). Note the power that these female figures possess over
the male figures in these stories. If, as Twitchell states, these women are
responsible for the narrators‘ ―present debilitation,‖ it seems as though the
character development of this femme fatal would be more complete. However,
Lorine Pruette offers the following insight into the short story author that may
explain this stock-character syndrome found in these three works. In regards to
Poe, Pruette notes:
His nature demanded the adoration and approval of ‗woman,‘ rather
than sexual conquests, and he worshiped in his poems a feminine
idealization to which he ascribed various names. These women are
never human; they are not warm flesh and blood, loving, hating or
coming late to appointments – they are simply beautiful lay figures
around which to hang wreaths of poetical sentiments. His emotional
interest lay in himself, rather than in outer objects; he wished to be
loved, rather than to love (380).
Therefore, the repeated characterization of the one-dimensional female vampire
in Poe‘s three works studied here complements the author‘s own perspective
toward women in the nineteenth century.
In addition to these misogynistic overtones, the idea of identity is a
repeated theme that seems to worry the narrator in each of these three Poe
tales. For example, the narrator in ―Morella‖ says that of reason and
consciousness ―it is this which makes us all to be that which we call ourselves –
61
thereby distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our personal
identity which at death is or is not lost forever‖ (Poe, Edgar Allan Poe 235).
However, although he kills off the female characters in each story, I believe it is
the male narrator‘s identity – not that of the female – which concerns the author.
Poe depicts his female characters as monstrous creatures returned from the
dead and, as is the case in ―Morella‖ and ―Ligeia,‖ he even intertwines two
identities into one. In this way, the narrator observes what happens to the female
character after death, and through reason and consciousness (which seems
lacking in the female characters), he reflects upon his own identity. Therefore,
through his observance of the demise of the female, the male narrator
distinguishes his own identity.
In contrast to Poe‘s tales where the narrator gains insight into his own
identity through the observation of the female‘s demise, Rubén Darío tackles the
issue of identity through the hands of a mad scientist. In his short story
―Thanatopia,‖ Darío narrates the story of a woman transformed into a vampire by
her husband, a scientist. Like an obedient creature, she seems physically
submissive and responds unquestionably to his commands. As a classic femme
fatal, the nameless stepmother of Darío‘s tale is seductive and bloodthirsty even
though she acts solely on the commands of her husband. In this manner, this
created creature seems a model representation of the ideal domestic woman of
nineteenth century society. In addition, just as Adam‘s first wife Lilith was
expelled from the Garden of Paradise and the second, more obedient wife Eve
was allowed to remain, the mother Lilith in Darío‘s short story is replaced in the
house by this handmade wife. Thus, the identity of Darío‘s femme fatale lies
within the hands of her husband who chooses her appearance, words, and
actions. Reminiscent of Shelley‘s Frankenstein in that she is portrayed as being
―homemade,‖ Darío‘s female vampire acts obediently towards her master rather
than rebelling, as does the male Frankenstein-monster towards his creator.
In comparison to Poe‘s tales, the poetic voice of Charles Baudelaire‘s
poems ―Le Vampire‖ and ―Les Metamorphoses du Vampire‖ observes the female
vampire from a more distant and judgmental perspective than that of Darío‘s
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story, in which man acts as creator to the female vampire. As George Ross
Ridge states, ―Decadent men, themselves malignant, become even worse
because of her‖ (353). As indicated by this observation, the focus of man is again
on man, and not on woman, this meaning that the male poetic voice in
Baudelaire‘s poems - and in Poe‘s short stories - observes the female only in
regards to himself. The male persona has no personal interest in the female
vampire beyond the insight that his observations of her provide to him about
himself, and perhaps society in general. Described as a snake, a spider, and a
beast of prey, Baudelaire depicts the female persona more as an animal than
human, thereby negating her humanity and her identity as a human being.
In relation to Darío‘s ―Thanatopia,‖ I believe that the painting by Dante
Gabriel Rossetti titled Body‘s Beauty, originally Lady Lilith, is the work being
referenced in the short story. The painting and poem both reference the LilithEve conflict, or the dichotomy between evil and good, that Darío‘s story
addresses as well. For example, Lilith‘s abundance of white skin and roses would
seem quite angelic if it were not for the splashes of red included in the painting.
In addition, the final focus on her red lips takes away from the otherwise angelic
persona, thereby reminding us of the more ravenous characteristics of the
femme fatale. However, above all else, in Rossetti‘s letter to his friend Dr.
Thomas Hake in 1870 he comments that ―The idea which you indicate (viz: of the
perilous principle in the world being female from the first) is about the most
essential notion of the sonnet‖ (Allen 286). This remark clearly exemplifies what
Virginia Allen refers to as ―the fears and desires of Rossetti's audience as well as
his own feelings‖ (Abstract).
This ―perilous principle in the world being female from the first‖ (Allen 286),
expressed by Rossetti, is negated by Agustini. She does this perhaps through
the same perspective that encourages Andrew Smith to argue that ―Monsters are
not straightforwardly just monsters, for example (as we saw in Frankenstein):
rather they illustrate the presence of certain cultural anxieties that are indirectly
expressed through apparently fantastical forms‖ (Smith 58). In this way, Agustini
63
takes the stereotypical, male-authored female vampire and adds a human
dimension to her otherwise monstrous characterization.
As noted in Chapter 1, the male-authored female vampire of nineteenth
century literature is capable of spearheading the symbolic fear of the New
Woman. Hand in hand with this caricature of the New Woman are Poe‘s short
stories in which woman ―is responsible not only for her demise, but for [the
narrator‘s] debilitation as well‖ (Twitchell 50), and Baudelaire‘s depiction of the
female persona more as an animal than human, thereby negates her humanity
and her identity as a human being. Darío‘s short story differs from these other
works in that his scientist male character expresses an interest in the female
vampire‘s identity. This interest, however, is strictly misogynistic in that he acts
as master-creator to his Frankenstein-like creation. Essentially, as Pruette says
about Poe, ―His emotional interest lay in himself‖ (380). Finally, Virginia Allen
notes the following in regards to Rossetti:
Among Gabriel‘s papers, William Rossetti found a letter dated
November 18, 1869, addressed to the editor of the Athenaeum and
signed Ponsonby A. Lyons. . . . Whatever the source of the letter, its
author makes eminently clear the connection between Lilith and the
Woman‘s Emancipation Movement in England. He opens his letter to
the Athenaeum in this manner: ―Lilith, about whom you ask for
information, was the first strong-minded woman and the original
advocate of woman‘s rights. (292)
Therefore, representation of the New Woman, as either Lilith or the female
vampire, ―incorporates the fears and fascination of Rossetti and his generation‖
born from the Women‘s Emancipation Movement (Allen 286).
These male authors present the femme fatal as ―alluring as well as
dangerous, a Victorian sex-object who incorporated in her being the whole
weight of fear and desire that Victorian gentlemen felt in confrontation with a
woman‘s demand for independence‖ (Allen 294). This demand, however, is not
actually heard in these male-authored texts. The most vocalized demand is
perhaps in Poe‘s ―Morella‖ when the narrator‘s wife threatens his future
64
happiness. However, her threat sounds borrowed from the already developed
myth of Lilith, the destroyer of men and murderess of children, and does not
attempt to further develop the female vampire character. In contrast, Agustini
gives voice to her female vampire. In the female-authored text ―El vampiro,‖ for
the first time we hear the voice of the female vampire rather than a repetition of
either the male narrator‘s voice or the myth of Lilith. Agustini takes the reader into
the unexplored interior of this creature. Like a vault unsealed after many years,
the outline of the interior is visible but specific details remain hidden. For
example, even though the female persona of ―El vampiro‖ asks the final, powerful
questions in regards to her identity, she continues to search for the answers
through the eyes of her male companion. As a modern woman, she is focused on
her own image; however, as this role is indeed new to her, the path she can
follow remains dust-covered and unrecognizable.
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CHAPTER 3
FROM VICTIM TO VAMPIRE: THE FEMALE VAMPIRE OF
C. BRONTE, C. ROSSETTI, AND AGUSTINI
I see that the world is not a bit the better for centuries of self-sacrifice on the
woman's part and therefore I think it is time we tried a more effectual plan.
And I propose now to sacrifice the man instead of the woman.
Sarah Grand
By night the other side of her character gains control; and Mina describes her
as restless and impatient to get out. It is this restlessness which ultimately
leads her to Dracula and to emancipation from her society’s restraints.
Carol Senf
Introduction
The vampire exists in a world without restrictions. According to Gina
Wisker, ―Female vampires lurk seductively and dangerously in romantic poetry
and nineteenth century fictions, where they chiefly act as a warning against being
taken in by appearances and becoming victim to the evils of women‘s active
sexuality, equated with the demonic‖ (169). Thus, sadism and other perversions
that render man as victim to woman would strike fear within a patriarchal society,
and can be effectually described in terms of the female vampire.
In his Psychopathia Sexualis, with Special Reference to Contrary Sexual
Instinct: A Medico-Legal Study, Richard von Krafft-Ebing discusses sadism in
woman. Sadism, he explains, is a perversion generally associated with men but
also present in women. Characterized by the controlling of others through pain,
suffering, or humiliation, sadism ―represents a pathological intensification of the
masculine sexual character.‖ The case study that Krafft-Ebing presents in
regards to his research and findings describes a man who must make cuts in his
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arm in order to seduce his wife, who is sexually aroused by sucking the blood
from his wounds. Krafft-Ebing notes the similarity between this case and the
vampire folklore of the Balkan Peninsula, which originated in the Greek myths of
the lamia and marmolykes, or blood-sucking women (qtd. in Stoker 396-97).
From Greek myth to the seventeenth century Hungarian aristocrat
Elizabeth Bathory, the frontier between the real and literary female vampire
continues to blur. In regards to the tale of Bathory, author James Twitchell of The
Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature explains:
According to the lore, her blood lust started when a maid who was
combing Elizabeth‘s hair hit a snarl and tried to yank it loose. Her
attempts only infuriated her mistress, and Elizabeth swung around and
hit the girl so hard that blood spurted from her nose. As the blood
splashed onto Elizabeth‘s hand, she noticed her fingers felt somehow
lighter and more flexible. If the hand could feel revitalized at the
anointment of this fluid, why not other parts of her body? (18).
Hence, several hundred maiden bodies were pierced and bled for Elizabeth‘s
pleasure before the local authorities eventually entered the castle and ended the
Bathory blood bath. Alejandra Pizarnik, an Argentine female author, retells the
Bathory tale in her La condesa sangrienta (1971).
A woman behaving sadistically - or vampirically - is justifiable,
according to the nineteenth century female author George Eliot. Rather than
focusing on a psychological or medical explanation, Eliot views women‘s
vampiric behavior from a social and cultural perspective. She proposes that
women are presented with no other choice in nineteenth century society than to
act as ―parasites.‖ Due to their being ―prevented from contributing to the society
in which they live, idle, helpless, and destructive, many women come to resemble
vampires, who suck vitality from those around them‖ (Senf 130).
Carol Senf offers an excellent description of this conflict suffered by
the nineteenth century society‘s New Woman, suggested by Eliot. The following
is a quote from Senf‘s study of Lucy Westenra of Stoker‘s Dracula:
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By night the other side of her character gains control; and Mina
describes her as restless and impatient to get out. It is this restlessness
which ultimately leads her to Dracula and to emancipation from her
society‘s restraints.
After meeting Dracula, the conflict between social conformity and
individual desire becomes more apparent: ‗The moment she became
conscious she pressed the garlic flowers close to her. . . . Whenever she
got into that lethargic state, with the stertorous breathing, she put the
flowers from her. . . . When she waked she clutched them close‘
(Dracula, p. 146). The garlic flowers are, of course, a charm to ward off
the vampire; and the reader witnesses a struggle between Lucy‘s
conscious and conforming side – the side that feels guilty for her liaison
with the vampire – and her unconscious side – the part that desires the
freedom from social constraints that the vampiric condition entails (Senf
42-43).
In Sarah Grand‘s nineteenth century novel The Heavenly Twins, Evadne,
one of three heroines, observes the ludicrosity of woman‘s self-sacrifice in malefemale relationships. On her wedding day, she learns of her husband‘s sexually
promiscuous past and plans to leave him. However, encouraged by her parents,
she remains in the unconsummated marriage for appearances sake. In Chapter
XIV, in a conversation with her aunt, Evadne comments,
You have never thought about what a woman ought to do who has
married a bad one--in an emergency like mine, that is. You think I should
act as women have been always advised to act in such cases, that I
should sacrifice myself to save that one man's soul. I take a different
view of it. I see that the world is not a bit the better for centuries of selfsacrifice on the woman's part and therefore I think it is time we tried a
more effectual plan. And I propose now to sacrifice the man instead of
the woman. (Grand)
Emancipated from social restraint, the female vampire possesses a
freedom otherwise relatively unknown by the nineteenth century woman. As is
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evident in cases such as Lucy Westenra in Stoker‘s Dracula, who ―had allowed
herself to be the passive victim of whatever was done to her [but now, as a
vampire,] she rejects her former passivity and deference to male authority‖ (Senf
45), the New Woman gave free reign to her desires and struck fear in others.
This freedom of woman, however, was frequently portrayed in a negative light –
even by female authors. Take for example the vampiric Bertha Rochester in
Charlotte Brontë‘s Jane Eyre. Depicted as a hysterical madwoman rather than a
progressive model to modern women, Bertha gives free reign to her every desire
yet remains enclosed within an attic room, a prisoner to Mr. Rochester‘s male
authority. In Christina Rossetti‘s Goblin Market, Laura also gives in to temptation
and eats the fruit of her desire. Notice again, however, that the poem concludes
with the sisters each situated within an ideal Victorian domestic circumstance –
at home with the children. Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ differs from all of these
examples in that the female persona mortally wounds the male persona, thus
signifying at least a physical emancipation from him if not an emotional or
psychological one.
Charlotte Brontë‘s Jane Eyre
During the middle of the night at Thornfield Hall in Chapter XXV,
Charlotte Brontë‘s Jane Eyre awakes from a foreshadowing dream of destruction
to find someone rummaging inside her closet. Calling out to the mysterious figure
she receives no response, but she does note the face of the intruder in the
mirror. Relaying the details of the event to Mr. Rochester the next morning, Jane
describes the face as being ―Fearful and ghastly to me—oh, sir, I never saw a
face like it! It was a discoloured face—it was a savage face. I wish I could forget
the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments! . . .
[T]he lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed: the black eyebrows widely
raised over the bloodshot eyes.‖ Continuing with her tale, she says that the figure
reminded her ―Of the foul German spectre – the Vampyre‖ (Brontë).
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This vampire is of course Bertha Rochester, Mr. Rochester‘s first wife.
The vampiric distinction between the first wife and second wife is reminiscent of
Lilith, Adam‘s first wife, and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Similarly in both stories,
the first wife is rebellious and thus rejected while the more submissive wife is
allowed to remain by the husband‘s side.
Bertha Rochester thus represents ―not the repressed element in the
respectable woman, but the suppressed element in the unemancipated woman‖
(Gilbert 359-60). In other words, a female possessing vampiric qualities does so
due to a type of imprisonment, this restraint being either physical or
psychological. For example, women of the nineteenth century are commonly
characterized as prisoners within their domestic sphere, specifically within the
kitchen or bedroom. In addition, psychological imprisonment could be due to any
number of Victorian societal restrains and conventional rules.
Note, however, that Jane Eyre does not directly label Bertha as a
vampire but rather alludes to her vampiric qualities. Thus, ―the upstairs monster
is not, at least not yet in the story, an actual practicing vampire, but already she
comes close‖ (Twitchell 67-68). This allusion to the female vampire without
actually describing her as such is similar to that also found in Edgar Allan Poe‘s
short stories discussed in Chapter 2. In addition, the works of Baudelaire and
Darío, also discussed in Chapter 2, and Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ differ from their
predecessors such as Poe and C. Brontë in that they name the female vampire,
rather than simply alluding to her Gothic characteristics.
Christina Rossetti‘s Goblin Market
Christina Rossetti‘s Goblin Market (1862) does not specifically
mention vampires, however, the goblins themselves represent otherworldly
creatures, like the vampire, and the juice of their fruits produces a vampirically
characteristic ―lust for life‖ (―Vampires‖). These creatures‘ victims are the young
and innocent maidens of the Victorian era and, much like the archetypal male
vampire, the goblin men feed on the simplistic ignorance of trusting ladies, thus
70
seducing them with their hypnotic temptations. Victims of the goblin men and
vampires behave in an uncharacteristically desirous manner. They meet with the
creature in secret, unable to escape its mysterious allure. The victims fall prey to
these creatures through the action of a bite – either of the vampire or, as is the
case in Goblin Market, their own. The juices exerted from this bite act as a
seductive elixir, causing the victims to return to the otherworldly creatures again
and again as they become physically and spiritually trapped within a catastrophic
downward spiral that ends only when life finally escapes from them.
In Goblin Market, Laura falls victim to the ―evil gifts‖ (C. Rossetti 66) of the
―evil people‖ (437) by biting into the juices of their forbidden fruit, just like Eve in
the Garden of Eden. Each scenario describes the fall of an archetypically good,
domestic woman into evil via the temptation of a sinister snake or goblin man.
Comparative to Eve‘s curiosity of the forbidden apple in the Tree of Knowledge of
Good and Evil, the goblins have a ―mysterious nature‖ that causes a ―violent
thrill‖ in Laura as she watches them pass by (Morrill 3). Unable to refrain herself,
Laura
Then sucked their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flowed that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She sucked and sucked and sucked the more (C. Rossetti 128-34),
only later to have ―her tree of life drooped from the root‖ (260) as ―her hair grew
thin and gray; / She dwindled‖ (77-78).
Ironically, the maiden victim invites her own victimization. According to
James Twitchell, ―the vampire cannot cross a threshold until invited‖ (10). In
other words, a victim must offer the vampire some type of invitation. In Goblin
Market, Laura offers the goblin men a lock of her hair in exchange for some of
their fruit. This free will exchange thus symbolizes an invitation to the goblin men
71
who, through the seductive juices of their alluring fruits, enter the body of the
innocent maiden, thereby staining her innocence.
Meanwhile, although Eve in the Garden of Eden and the female persona
in Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ do not offer a physical invitation to evil as does Laura in
Goblin Market, an emotional and/or psychological desire to experience
something new must exist within them because each allows evil to enter into their
domestic spheres. Eve allows the snake to tempt her into trying the forbidden
fruit and Agustini‘s female persona allows the male persona to torment her within
the poem‘s intimate, seemingly domestic, setting. This desire would stem from a
lack of something within another area of their lives. According to Jean Chevalier
and Alain Gheerrant in A Dictionary of Symbols, the vampire exists only until the
problem of an individual‘s exterior or interior world is resolved (―Vampires‖).
Therefore, C. Rossetti‘s goblin men and Agustini‘s vampire exist to Laura
and the female persona, respectively, because of a problem in the female
characters‘ exterior or interior world. In Goblin Market, domestic responsibilities
present the problem in Laura‘s life, as is evident in the following final lines of the
poem which concludes with the two sisters now married with children:
‗For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way (C. Rossetti 526-64).
This ―tedious way‖ that C. Rossetti refers to ―can be read as a critique of
the domestic responsibilities that go along with motherhood, which means that
the ostensible celebration of family life with which the poem concludes is
compromised by a typically Gothic ambivalence‖ (Smith 60). This combination of
the Gothic and domestic is representative of the setting in Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖
as well. The dark Gothic genre counterbalances the stereotypical ―good‖ image
of the Victorian domestic realm, thus offering a more realistic and honest
perspective of a woman‘s world offered by a Victorian female author.
72
Conclusion
Sarah Grand writes about the nineteenth century as a time when women
fell victim to ―tales that caused chords of pleasurable emotion to vibrate while
they fanned the higher faculties into inaction--vampire things inducing that fatal
repose which enables them to drain the soul of its life blood and compass its
destruction‖ (Grand). In agreement with Grand is Charlotte Spivack, author of
―‗The Hidden World Below‘: Victorian Women Fantasy Poets,‖ who states that the
reality for many nineteenth century women was an empty world full of ―repressed
desires.‖ Within this empty world of reality, the world of fantastic poetry would
allow the artist to live in ―the unconscious, with its fanciful images, its dream
content, its mythic symbols, a world not affected by confinement or construction‖
(Spivack 54). The world of fantastic poetry, in other words, promoted the higher
faculties of the female poet into action, rather than inaction, thereby warding off
the vampiric demise of the nineteenth century‘s cultural and intellectual norms.
In regards to the fantastic genre, Delmira Agustini herself defines ―la
fantasía‖ as ―estrena un raro traje lleno de pedrería‖ in the poem ―El poeta leva el
ancla‖ (Agustini 6-7). That is to say that fantastic poetry is, to a nineteenth
century female writer, a treasure. The fantastic genre offered women writers of
the nineteenth century a freedom from their otherwise conventional way of daily
life. This day-to-day struggle between the conventional and a sense of freedom
in the work of Agustini is noted in Angel Rama‘s comment where he states, ―Así
pasó con Delmira Agustini por quien comienza a existir un arte femenino en el
Uruguay, y que muere cuando entran en pugna dentro de ella las dos funciones
dispares que la nueva sociedad novecientista le impone: la mistificación de la
burguesa convencional y su independencia como ente de la sensualidad
amorosa‖ (7).
This same struggle between the conventional norm and independence is
also evident in the works of Jane Eyre, Goblin Market, and ―El vampiro.‖ The
changes presented within these works demonstrate the slow but steady
progression toward emancipation in the role of women from the mid-nineteenth
73
century to the early twentieth century. In Jane Eyre, Bertha Rochester represents
the vampiric figure of Charlotte Brontë‘s novel. She lives hidden away in an attic
of her husband‘s home, tended to like an animal in a cage. Depicted as a woman
suffering from an inherited type of hysteria, she seems more monster than
human. Her victims, Mason and Mr. Rochester, are both male and both survive
her attacks. In the end, she falls victim to her own circumstance when she throws
herself from the balcony into the fire below. In Goblin Market, Laura is portrayed
as the domesticated sister with vampiric tendencies. Characterized as a person,
albeit a distraught person, she is rendered less monstrous than Brontë‘s Bertha
Rochester. Besides her frustrations with housework and woman‘s domestic role
of the nineteenth century, Laura appears as an ideal Victorian woman. She is
young and innocent, but led astray by temptation. Her victim is herself, and
possibly her sister who risks her own innocence in order to rescue Laura. In the
end, once Laura‘s desire is overcome, the two sisters are depicted as
conventional, although possibly still frustrated, housewives. In ―El vampiro,‖ the
most obvious victim is male – as in Jane Eyre – yet this time he is mortally
wounded. The male persona will not survive the attack by Agustini‘s female
vampire. Also, the female persona not only possesses vampiric characteristics
like her predecessors in Jane Eyre and Goblin Market, but is arguably named a
vampire by the author through the title. This metamorphosis of character is
carried over into the voice of the female vampire as well. In Jane Eyre and Goblin
Market, readers learn about the female characters through a third-person
narration. In ―El vampiro,‖ however, Agustini presents the thoughts of the female
persona through a first-person narration, thereby setting a more intimate tone
such as a confessional or interior dialogue. In this way, the reader gains a new
perspective into the character of the female vampire. Meanwhile, she retains the
same stereotypical, monstrous role towards the male victim that Gisela Norat
notes in another Agustini poem, ―Serpentina.‖ In regards to this poem, Norat
states that ―El odio de la lengua venenosa . . . y de la mirada fatal se concentran
en un solo cuerpo. Este cuerpo es foco de una gran fuerza destructiva. La mujer
serpiente/vampiresa tiene absoluto poder sobre su víctima, logrando paralizarla
74
con su veneno/mordida. Su fuerza puede tanto seducir como castrar‖ (401).
However, in ―El vampiro,‖ through the female vampire Agustini also reveals a
more vulnerable, human side to a previously stereotypical female monster.
That Agustini characterizes the female persona of ―El vampiro‖ as a
vampire symbolizes ―the turning of psychic forces against oneself‖ (―Vampires‖).
In what could seem to be a type of interior dialogue, the female vampire – rather
than continuing with her physical attack – resorts to questioning the male
persona. In this way, she chooses words as her final weapon. However, although
her questions are directed at him, it seems that she is challenging herself to
answer the questions as well. In this way she seems to realize that there is life
beyond her present, vampirically domestic and conventional existence, yet she is
unable to fully comprehend the independence that seems just beyond her reach
– just as a vampire is able to live among the living yet unable to actually live life
as a normal human being.
Thus in these three works by three different female authors, we witness
the progression of the character of the female vampire from the mid-nineteenth
century to the early twentieth century. In the works of C. Brontë and C. Rossetti,
the female possesses the power of the vampire, yet reverts to the role of victim in
the end. For example, Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre dies by her own hand –
although it could be argued that her husband‘s actions persuaded, or even
forced, her own. In addition, in Goblin Market, Laura goes back to the
conventional way of life, the poem ending with a glimpse of her and her sister as
ideal housewives of the Victorian era. This work by C. Rossetti does, however,
portray Laura from a more humane perspective in comparison to the monstrous
Bertha Rochester. In the beginning and end of Goblin Market, Laura is
characterized as an ideal Victorian woman tending to her domestic duties. The
difference in her characterization in comparison to say Lucy Westenra of Bram
Stoker‘s Dracula is C. Rossetti‘s hinting at Laura‘s dissatisfaction with her
domesticated role. In the end though, dissatisfied or not, Laura suppresses her
desires and returns to the conventional way of life. Finally, in Agustini‘s ―El
vampiro,‖ the female persona bites the male persona, mortally wounding him. As
75
his death seems inevitable, the female persona will not be leading the same
domestic life at the end of the poem as she did at the beginning. Therefore,
Agustini‘s work represents an actual shift in the role of the female. At the end of
the poem, the female persona retains her vampiric power over the male figure
and it is her voice which is heard questioning her role, not that of the dictatorial
and patriarchal Victorian norm.
As Gina Wisker states in her article ―Love Bites: Contemporary Women‘s
Vampire Fiction,‖ ―One of the fundamental challenges that the vampire enacts is
to philosophical constructions underlying social relations.‖ This type of
philosophical query by the female persona is what we witness in the final stanza
of Agustini‘s ―El vampiro,‖ where she questions her own identity. Wisker goes on
to note that ―the vampire disrupts polarised systems of thought [and it]
undermines and disempowers western logical tendencies to construct divisive,
hierarchical, oppositional structures.‖ Similarly, Agustini‘s female persona
struggles with the Victorian era‘s stereotypical male-female hierarchy. She
struggles to realize and define her independent role, but continues to be bound
by her society‘s conventional expectations. According to Wisker, ―In restrictive,
repressive eras the vampire‘s transgression of gender boundaries, life/death,
day/night behaviour, and its invasion of the sanctity of body, home and blood are
elements of its abjection. But in its more radical contemporary form, it is no
longer abject, rejected with disgust to ensure identity . . . Instead it enables us to
recognise that the Other is part of ourselves.‖ This Other, the monstrous
characterization of the female vampire, is part of Agustini‘s female persona.
Within ―El vampiro,‖ readers witness the enlightenment of the female persona as
she becomes aware of this new, other side to her identity. Although she falters in
response to this new perspective of self, the Other presents her with an ―endless
potential for radical alternative behavior‖ (Wisker 168).
Finally, in part due to the progression of Agustini‘s female vampire,
women writers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries continue to ―infuse the
age-old figure with new life and new potential to comment on what it means to be
human‖ (Wisker 167). To contemporary women writers ―the vampire becomes
76
the ideal myth to explore and enact imaginative, radical critique of restrictive,
oppressive cultural regimes‖ (177). In addition, if women writers such as C.
Brontë, C. Rossetti, and Agustini had not incorporated and evolved the figure of
the vampire into their works, it is likely that today‘s contemporary women writers
would choose a different character to represent their boundary-breaking
messages. In essence, the progression of Agustini‘s vampire has allowed for the
continued evolution and emancipation of the female vampire of the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries.
77
CONCLUSION
Chapter 1 is a close study of Delmira Agustini‘s poem ―El vampiro,‖ from
her Los cantos de la mañana collection. Specific elements studied in detail
include the atmosphere, setting, plot, character, structure, and theme, in addition
to historical-biographical considerations, symbolism, the speaker‘s voice, and the
overall emotional impact of the poem. Also included are visual comparisons that
reference the paintings Vampire and The Vampire by Edvard Munch and Philip
Burne-Jones, respectively. Literary references are made to Bram Stoker‘s
Dracula as well.
With a sense of hopelessness and dread, Agustini‘s poetic persona rebels
against her emotionally and physically claustrophobic captivity. However, much
like the young female in Munch‘s Death in the Sick Room, she is unable to look
beyond her present circumstance and withdraw herself from this interior
chamber. Agustini focuses on the extreme solitude felt by her poetic persona,
although ironically, she is not alone. This phenomenon I refer to as a ―paradox of
isolation within a population,‖ where the characters of the vampire and his/her
victim tend to dictate an individual, solitary mood within the works of art in which
they are both present.
Agustini circumvents some of our classic expectations and presents a new
perspective through which to receive the twentieth century vampire. Looking
back to the eighteenth century, many men suffered from a type of ―male
castration anxiety‖ (Kahane 7) due in part to the image of the French
Revolutionary woman. Meanwhile, by the late nineteenth century the existing
patriarchal social structures were seemingly under attack by the effects of
industrialization. These abrupt changes awakened a sense of fear or anxiety ―of
being subject to forces beyond one‘s comprehension or control‖ (1). In the setting
and atmosphere of Munch‘s comparative work Vampire, I suggest that the color
imagery of black and red used by Munch is a reiteration that his female subject is
a representation of evil. Throughout a majority of his life, Munch maintained an
unnatural fear of women, thus providing more reason for Munch to surround his
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femme fatal in a symbolic sea of black. By the end of the nineteenth century, a
new breed of woman was born. Different to the passive, maternal role presented
as the foundation of a woman‘s social identity, this new woman represented a
powerful woman - a woman worthy of the fear displayed in Munch‘s Vampire.
This new female-phenomenon, this donning of the mask of the New
Woman, affected the representative female role in the world of art, fiction and
poetry. Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ and Munch‘s Vampire exemplify the New Womanchange that was taking hold of the domestic, public, and art spheres. Due to
changing societal circumstances, both works illustrate a resulting sense of
unease. By setting their subjects in a position of unfamiliar power, they exhibit an
atmosphere infused with a distinctive, new kind of fear.
Through various juxtapositions of light and dark, and connotations of good
and evil, life and death, etc., Agustini keeps within the literary tradition of Horace
Walpole‘s gothic narratives. In particular, the gothic title ―El vampiro‖ implies an
unsettling setting for her poem, such as the rising from the ruins of medieval
castles with dungeons, secret passages, and torture chambers that blossom
under the haunting rays of full moons at midnight. As the poem moves into the
first stanza, a sad sort of anguish penetrates the female‘s poetic voice and her
emotional stream of sorrow builds. Reflecting upon the silent body of the male
figure laid out in front of her in the fourth and final stanza, the poetic voice‘s
reflection turns inward in contemplation of her own life and readers witness an
increasing fear of self within an increasingly agitated interior. In addition,
Agustini‘s ―El vampiro‖ demonstrates just how a society‘s conflict can
devastatingly manifest itself within the interior of an individual.
In regards to this theme of isolation, Agustini chooses words as her final
weapon. In the fourth stanza, a line of asterisks visually separates the poetic
voice‘s final questions from the rest of the poem. However, although she directs
her questions to the male figure it seems as though she is challenging herself to
answer the questions as well. Thus, the poetic voice who has directed her verbal
and physical assaults on the male figure in the first three stanzas turns on herself
in the final stanza - questioning her own sense of self in regards to him. The
79
crutch of this conclusion is dependent upon one line of the poem ―¿Por qué fui tu
vampiro de amargura?‖ (15). In this final moment of the poem, the poetic voice
recognizes and questions her vampiric existence. She claims herself to be a
vampire, yet it is through his victimization of her that she has been transformed.
No names or identifying characteristics other than the most general
observations identify these poetic figures, thus symbolizing that these personas
could represent any figure in society and also that they may not even know
themselves. Locked away in this dark room together and positioned in the
reverse of their stereotypical male-female roles, they are unsure of themselves.
The male is submissive to the female while the female physically dominates the
male. The female figure becomes the unlikely power figure by physically intruding
upon the male figure in a vampiric fashion. She also intrudes upon the silence of
the room by thrusting her questions at him in the final stanza. However, more
than anything, she intrudes upon her own confidence and wavering knowledge of
self-identity.
In Chapter 2, the characterization of the female vampire depends on her
creator. As James B. Twitchell puts it, ―To the male she may well be a
masturbatory fantasy – voluptuous, enthralling, dangerous, enervating; but to the
female she is cruel, demonic, selfish, and hideous‖ (73). Delmira Agustini
rewrites the role of the female vampire in ―El vampiro‖ and challenges the literary
canon‘s mostly male characterization of this persona, thereby opening a debate
in regards to the new role that this character occupies within the late nineteenth
century society.
The nineteenth century male authors explored in Chapter 2 tend towards a
misogynistic use of the female vampire, whereas the characterization that
Agustini develops in her poetic persona is much more complex. Agustini, shying
away from the archetypically monstrous characterization adopted by her male
predecessors, she opts instead for a more humane depiction complete with such
differing emotions as love and hate, or adoration and angst. Her representation
offers a more complex characterization than that of Twitchell‘s female-authored
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female vampire, described as ―cruel, demonic, selfish, and hideous‖ (Twitchell
73).
Edgar Allan Poe is the author of the vampiric short stories ―Berenice,‖
―Morella,‖ and ―Ligeia.‖ In ―Berenice,‖ the heroine is emaciated from disease,
buried alive, and robbed of her teeth. However, the narrator never perceives
Berenice as a victim. Instead, she is viewed as a dreadful creature while the
male narrator – the actual violator of Berenice – remains in a sympathetic light. In
―Morella,‖ the narrator marries not for love, but for passion. On her deathbed,
Morella declares to the narrator that she knows he never loved her. For ten years
after Morella‘s death, he keeps their child hidden away from society, not even
giving her a name. When it comes time to baptize her, he must choose a name
for her. At the baptism many names pass through his head, but the one that slips
from his mouth is that of her mother, Morella. At the mention of this name the
narrator hears a voice whisper, ―I am here!‖ (Poe, Edgar Allan Poe 238). Finally,
in ―Ligeia,‖ the family name and place of origin remain unknown in regards to the
femme fatal. Again, the narrator marries, the wife dies, and the wife returns from
the dead.
According to Twitchell, the narrator in each of these Poe stories ―is
explaining his relationship with a woman who is now dead, a woman who,
according to him, is responsible not only for her demise, but for his present
debilitation as well‖ (50). Note the power that these female figures possess over
the male figures in these stories. If, as Twitchell states, these women are
responsible for the narrators‘ ―present debilitation,‖ it seems as though the
character development of this femme fatal would be more complete. However,
Lorine Pruette offers the following insight into the short story author that may
explain this stock-character syndrome found in these three works. In regards to
Poe, Pruette notes:
His nature demanded the adoration and approval of ‗woman,‘ rather
than sexual conquests, and he worshiped in his poems a feminine
idealization to which he ascribed various names. These women are
never human; they are not warm flesh and blood, loving, hating or
81
coming late to appointments – they are simply beautiful lay figures
around which to hang wreaths of poetical sentiments. His emotional
interest lay in himself, rather than in outer objects; he wished to be
loved, rather than to love (380).
Therefore, the repeated characterization of the one-dimensional female vampire
in Poe‘s three works studied here complements the author‘s own selfish
perspective toward women in the nineteenth century.
In addition to these misogynistic overtones, the idea of identity is a
repeated theme that seems to worry the narrator in each of these three Poe
tales. For example, the narrator in ―Morella‖ says that of reason and
consciousness ―it is this which makes us all to be that which we call ourselves –
thereby distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our personal
identity which at death is or is not lost forever‖ (Poe, Edgar Allan Poe 235).
However, although he kills off the female characters in each story, I believe it is
the male narrator‘s identity – not that of the female – which concerns the author.
Poe depicts his female characters as monstrous creatures returned from the
dead and, as is the case in ―Morella‖ and ―Ligeia,‖ he even intertwines two
identities into one. In this way, the narrator observes what happens to the female
character after death, and through reason and consciousness (which seems
lacking in the female characters), he reflects upon his own identity. Therefore,
through his observance of the demise of the female, the male narrator
distinguishes his own identity.
In contrast to Poe‘s tales where the narrator gains insight into his own
identity through the observation of the female‘s demise, Rubén Darío tackles the
issue of identity through the hands of a mad scientist. In his short story
―Thanatopia,‖ Darío narrates the story of a woman transformed into a vampire by
her husband, a scientist. Like an obedient creature, she seems physically
submissive and responds unquestionably to his commands. As a classic femme
fatal, the nameless stepmother of Darío‘s tale is seductive and bloodthirsty even
though she acts solely on the commands of her husband. In this manner, this
created creature seems a model representation of the ideal domestic woman of
82
nineteenth century society. In addition, just as Adam‘s first wife Lilith was
expelled from the Garden of Paradise and the second, more obedient wife Eve
was allowed to remain, the mother Lilith in Darío‘s short story is replaced in the
house by this self-created wife. Thus, the identity of Darío‘s femme fatale lies
within the hands of her husband who chooses her appearance, words, and
actions. Reminiscent of Shelley‘s Frankenstein in that she is portrayed as being
―homemade,‖ Darío‘s female vampire acts obediently towards her master rather
than rebelling, as does the male Frankenstein towards his creator.
In comparison to Poe‘s tales, the poetic voice of Charles Baudelaire‘s
poems ―Le Vampire‖ and ―Les Metamorphoses du Vampire‖ observes the female
vampire from a more distant and judgmental perspective than that of Darío‘s
story, in which man acts as creator to the female vampire. As George Ross
Ridge states, ―Decadent men, themselves malignant, become even worse
because of her‖ (353). As indicated by this observation, the focus of man is again
on man, and not on woman. This meaning that the male poetic voice in
Baudelaire‘s poems, and in Poe‘s short stories, observes the female only in
regards to himself. The male persona has no personal interest in the female
vampire beyond the insight that his observations of her provide to him about
himself, and perhaps society in general. Described as a snake, a spider, and a
beast of prey, Baudelaire depicts the female persona more as an animal than
human, thereby negating her humanity and her identity as a human being.
In relation to Darío‘s ―Thanatopia,‖ I believe that the painting by Dante
Gabriel Rossetti titled Body‘s Beauty, originally Lady Lilith, is the work being
referenced in the short story. The painting and poem both reference the LilithEve conflict, or the dichotomy between evil and good, that Darío‘s story
addresses as well. For example, Lilith‘s abundance of white skin and roses would
seem quite angelic if it were not for the splashes of red included in the painting.
In addition, the final focus on her red lips takes away from the otherwise angelic
persona, thereby reminding us of the more ravenous characteristics of the
femme fatale. However, above all else, in Rossetti‘s letter to his friend Dr.
Thomas Hake in 1870 he comments that ―The idea which you indicate (viz: of the
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perilous principle in the world being female from the first) is about the most
essential notion of the sonnet‖ (Allen 286). This remark clearly exemplifies what
Virginia Allen refers to as ―the fears and desires of Rossetti's audience as well as
his own feelings‖ (Abstract).
This ―perilous principle in the world being female from the first‖ (Allen 286),
expressed by Rossetti, is negated by Agustini. She does this perhaps through
the same perspective that encourages Andrew Smith to argue that ―Monsters are
not straightforwardly just monsters, for example (as we saw in Frankenstein):
rather they illustrate the presence of certain cultural anxieties that are indirectly
expressed through apparently fantastical forms‖ (Smith 58). In this way, Agustini
takes the stereotypical, male-authored female vampire and adds a human
dimension to her otherwise monstrous characterization.
As noted in Chapter 1, the male-authored female vampire of nineteenth
century literature is capable of spearheading the symbolic fear of the New
Woman. Hand in hand with this caricature of the New Woman are Poe‘s short
stories in which woman ―is responsible not only for her demise, but for [the
narrator‘s] debilitation as well‖ (Twitchell 50), and Baudelaire‘s depiction of the
female persona more as an animal than human, thereby negates her humanity
and her identity as a human being. Darío‘s short story differs from these other
works in that his male character expresses an interest in the female vampire‘s
identity. This interest, however, is strictly misogynistic in that he acts as mastercreator to his Frankenstein-like creation. Essentially, as Pruette says about Poe,
―His emotional interest lay in himself‖ (380). Finally, Virginia Allen notes the
following in regards to Rossetti:
Among Gabriel‘s papers, William Rossetti found a letter dated
November 18, 1869, addressed to the editor of the Athenaeum and
signed Ponsonby A. Lyons. . . . Whatever the source of the letter, its
author makes eminently clear the connection between Lilith and the
Woman‘s Emancipation Movement in England. He opens his letter to
the Athenaeum in this manner: ―Lilith, about whom you ask for
84
information, was the first strong-minded woman and the original
advocate of woman‘s rights (292).
Therefore, representation of the New Woman, as either Lilith or the female
vampire, ―incorporates the fears and fascination of Rossetti and his generation‖
born from the Women‘s Emancipation Movement (Allen 286).
These male authors present the femme fatal as ―alluring as well as
dangerous, a Victorian sex-object who incorporated in her being the whole
weight of fear and desire that Victorian gentlemen felt in confrontation with a
woman‘s demand for independence‖ (Allen 294). This demand, however, is not
actually heard in these male-authored texts. The most vocalized demand is
perhaps in Poe‘s ―Morella‖ when the narrator‘s wife threatens his future
happiness. However, her threat sounds borrowed from the already developed
myth of Lilith, the destroyer of men and murderess of children, and does not
attempt to further develop the female vampire character. In contrast, Agustini
gives voice to her female vampire. In the female-authored text ―El vampiro,‖ for
the first time we hear the voice of the female vampire rather than a repetition of
either the male narrator‘s voice or the myth of Lilith. Agustini takes the reader into
the unexplored interior of this creature. Like a vault unsealed after many years,
the outline of the interior is visible but specific details remain hidden. For
example, even though the female persona of ―El vampiro‖ asks the final, powerful
questions in regards to her identity, she continues to search for the answers
through the eyes of her male companion. As a modern woman, she is focused on
her own image; however, as this role is indeed new to her, the path she can
follow remains dust-covered and unrecognizable.
In Chapter 3, I reference Sarah Grand who writes about the nineteenth
century as a time when women fell victim to ―tales that caused chords of
pleasurable emotion to vibrate while they fanned the higher faculties into
inaction--vampire things inducing that fatal repose which enables them to drain
the soul of its life blood and compass its destruction‖ (Grand). In agreement with
Grand is Charlotte Spivack, author of ―‗The Hidden World Below‘: Victorian
Women Fantasy Poets,‖ who states that the reality for many nineteenth century
85
women was an empty world full of ―repressed desires.‖ Within this empty world
of reality, the world of fantastic poetry would allow the artist to live in ―the
unconscious, with its fanciful images, its dream content, its mythic symbols, a
world not affected by confinement or construction‖ (Spivack 54). The world of
fantastic poetry, in other words, promoted the higher faculties of the female poet
into action, rather than inaction, thereby warding off the vampiric demise of the
nineteenth century‘s cultural and intellectual norms.
In regards to the fantastic genre, Delmira Agustini herself defines ―la
fantasía‖ as ―estrena un raro traje lleno de pedrería‖ in the poem ―El poeta leva el
ancla‖ (Agustini). That is to say that fantastic poetry is, to a nineteenth century
female writer, a treasure. The fantastic genre offered women writers of the
nineteenth century a freedom from their otherwise conventional way of daily life.
This day-to-day struggle between the conventional and a sense of freedom in the
work of Agustini is noted in Angel Rama‘s comment where he states, ―Así pasó
con Delmira Agustini por quien comienza a existir un arte femenino en el
Uruguay, y que muere cuando entran en pugna dentro de ella las dos funciones
dispares que la nueva sociedad novecientista le impone: la mistificación de la
burguesa convencional y su independencia como ente de la sensualidad
amorosa‖ (7).
This same struggle between the conventional and independence is also
evident in the works of Jane Eyre, Goblin Market, and ―El vampiro.‖ The changes
presented within these works demonstrate the slow but steady progression
toward emancipation in the role of women from the mid-nineteenth century to the
early twentieth century. In Jane Eyre, Bertha Rochester represents the vampiric
figure of Charlotte Brontë‘s novel. She lives hidden away in an attic of her
husband‘s home, tended to like an animal in a cage. Depicted as a woman
suffering from an inherited type of hysteria, she seems more monster than
human. Her victims, Mason and Mr. Rochester, are both male and both survive
her attacks. In the end, she falls victim to her own circumstance when she throws
herself from the balcony into the fire below. In Goblin Market, Laura is portrayed
as the domesticated sister with vampiric tendencies. Characterized as a person,
86
albeit a distraught person, she is rendered less monstrous than Brontë‘s Bertha
Rochester. Besides her frustrations with housework and woman‘s domestic role
of the nineteenth century, Laura appears as an ideal Victorian woman. She is
young and innocent, but led astray by temptation. Her victim is herself, and
possibly her sister who risks her own innocence in order to rescue Laura. In the
end, once Laura‘s desire is overcome, the two sisters are depicted as
conventional, although possibly still frustrated, housewives. In ―El vampiro,‖ the
most obvious victim is male – as in Jane Eyre – yet this time he is mortally
wounded. The male persona will not survive the attack by Agustini‘s female
vampire. Also, the female persona not only possesses vampiric characteristics
like her predecessors in Jane Eyre and Goblin Market, but is arguably named a
vampire by the author through the title. This metamorphosis of character is
carried over into the voice of the female vampire as well. In Jane Eyre and Goblin
Market, readers learn about the female characters through a third-person
narration. In ―El vampiro,‖ however, Agustini presents the thoughts of the female
persona through a first-person narration, thereby setting a more intimate tone
such as a confessional or interior dialogue. In this way, the reader gains a new
perspective into the character of the female vampire. Meanwhile, she retains the
same stereotypical, monstrous role towards the male victim that Gisela Norat
notes in another Agustini poem, ―Serpentina.‖ In regards to this poem, Norat
states that ―El odio de la lengua venenosa . . . y de la mirada fatal se concentran
en un solo cuerpo. Este cuerpo es foco de una gran fuerza destructiva. La mujer
serpiente/vampiresa tiene absoluto poder sobre su víctima, logrando paralizarla
con su veneno/mordida. Su fuerza puede tanto seducir como castrar‖ (401).
However, in ―El vampiro,‖ through the female vampire Agustini also reveals a
more vulnerable, human side to a previously stereotypical female monster.
That Agustini characterizes the female persona of ―El vampiro‖ as a
vampire symbolizes ―the turning of psychic forces against oneself‖ (―Vampire‖). In
what could seem to be a type of interior dialogue, the female vampire – rather
than continuing with her physical attack – resorts to questioning the male
persona. In this way, she chooses words as her final weapon. However, although
87
her questions are directed at him, it seems that she is challenging herself to
answer the questions as well. In this way she seems to realize that there is life
beyond her present, vampirically domestic and conventional existence, yet she is
unable to fully comprehend the independence that seems just beyond her reach
– just as a vampire is able to live among the living yet unable to actually live life
as a normal human being.
Thus in these three works by three different female authors, we witness
the progression of the character of the female vampire from the mid-nineteenth
century to the early twentieth century. In the works of C. Brontë and C. Rossetti,
the female possesses the power of the vampire, yet reverts to the role of victim in
the end. For example, Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre dies by her own hand –
although it could be argued that her husband‘s actions persuaded, or even
forced, her own. In addition, in Goblin Market, Laura goes back to the
conventional way of life, the poem ending with a glimpse of her and her sister as
ideal housewives of the Victorian era. This work by C. Rossetti does, however,
portray Laura from a more humane perspective in comparison to Bertha
Rochester. In the beginning and end of the poem, Laura is characterized as an
ideal Victorian woman tending to her domestic duties. The difference in her
characterization in comparison to say Lucy Westenra of Bram Stoker‘s Dracula is
C. Rossetti‘s hinting at Laura‘s dissatisfaction with her domesticated role. In the
end though, dissatisfied or not, Laura suppresses her desires and returns to the
conventional way of life. Finally, in Agustini‘s ―El vampiro,‖ the female persona
bites the male persona, mortally wounding him. As his death seems inevitable,
the female persona will not be leading the same domestic life at the end of the
poem as she did at the beginning. Therefore, Agustini‘s work represents an
actual shift in the role of the female. At the end of the poem, the female persona
retains her vampiric power over the male figure and it is her voice which is heard
questioning her role, not that of the dictatorial patriarchal and Victorian norm.
As Gina Wisker states in her article ―Love Bites: Contemporary Women‘s
Vampire Fiction,‖ ―One of the fundamental challenges that the vampire enacts is
to philosophical constructions underlying social relations.‖ This type of
88
philosophical query by the female persona is what we witness in the final stanza
of Agustini‘s ―El vampiro,‖ where she questions her own identity. Wisker goes on
to note that ―the vampire disrupts polarised systems of thought [and it]
undermines and disempowers western logical tendencies to construct divisive,
hierarchical, oppositional structures.‖ Similarly, Agustini‘s female persona
struggles with the Victorian era‘s stereotypical male-female hierarchy. She
struggles to realize and define her independent role, but continues to be bound
by her society‘s conventional expectations. According to Wisker, ―In restrictive,
repressive eras the vampire‘s transgression of gender boundaries, life/death,
day/night behaviour, and its invasion of the sanctity of body, home and blood are
elements of its abjection. But in its more radical contemporary form, it is no
longer abject, rejected with disgust to ensure identity . . . Instead it enables us to
recognise that the Other is part of ourselves.‖ This Other, the monstrous
characterization of the female vampire, is part of Agustini‘s female persona.
Within ―El vampiro,‖ readers witness the enlightenment of the female persona as
she becomes aware of this new, independent Other side to her identity. Although
she falters in response to this new perspective of self, the Other presents her
with an ―endless potential for radical alternative behavior‖ (Wisker 168).
What first attracted me to this study was the question of why a female
author would choose to write about the vampire. To me the character
represented a grotesque monster as well as a well-bred playboy. The beginning
of my research soon revealed that the topic of the male vampire was too
expansive for a thesis paper. On the other hand, the availability of female
vampires was much more manageable, and even at times seemingly nonexistent. My attention then turned to how the female vampire differed from the
male vampire. My conclusion is that, in general, the female vampire is defined by
her sexuality and represented as the evil of nineteenth century society while the
male vampire continues to represent a mix of envy and desire as well as death.
In the end, I was intrigued as to how male and female authors would treat this
character. As evidenced in Chapters 2 and 3, the male authors approached her
89
characterization in a much more misogynistic manner than the female authors
who leant more of a humane perspective to her.
Turning to contemporary women writers of today, Gina Wisker states, ―the
vampire becomes the ideal myth to explore and enact imaginative, radical
critique of restrictive, oppressive cultural regimes‖ (177). For example, note Luisa
Valenzuela‘s short story ―Pequeño manual de vampirología teórica (Vademecum
para incautos)‖ in which she describes how to recognize the vampires in society.
These vampires, however, are genderless. That is, Valenzuela describes them
not as male or female but simply as individuals existing within our society. In
general, the female vampire continues to take a back seat to the male vampire.
Exceptions could include Elizabeth Bathory in Alejandra Pizarnik‘s La condesa
sangrienta and Claudia in Anne Rice‘s The Vampire Chronicles, although
Bathory only possesses vampiric characteristics and Claudia is still somewhat
under the control of the male vampires, respectively. Ultimately, the lack of
female vampires in yesterday and today‘s literature is surprising in that she offers
such a great opportunity for writers, especially female writers, to explore the
ever-changing power struggle of real life women. Therefore, I end this study with
a call for a resurrection of the female vampire in both creative writing as well as
critical studies.
90
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Although her birth certificate states Memphis, TN as her birthplace, Stephanie E.
Balmori was born in the small town of Selmer, TN on February 2, 1976. She
completed a BA in Marketing at The University of Memphis in 1999, a BA in
Creative Writing at Florida State University in 2007, and an MA in Spanish
Literature at Florida State University in 2009. She has published poetry in the
Kudzu Review (Fall 2007) and a book review in the Revista Carta Cultural of
Iquitos, Perú (Fall 2009) as well as presented in a poetry reading at The
Warehouse in Tallahassee, FL (May 2007) and at the VII Congreso Internacional
de Literatura Hispánica in Cusco, Perú (March 2008).
95