The Androgynous Idea Embodied In Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles

As a contemporary American writer,Anne Rice is known as the “mother of vampires”,owing to her series The Vampire Chronicles.Rice's vampire fictions successfully aroused many feminists' due attention.However,very few people make special research from the perspective of androgyny,and hence this new angle of view is the beginning of this thesis.Starting with the characterization in Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat,by using the theory of androgyny,this thesis aims to make a thorough study on the androgynous ideas embodied in Rice's vampire novels.By choosing characters to expound in terms of three kinds of personality,this thesis explains clearly the androgynous idea embodied in the two novels and asserts the expectation of pursuing the androgynous personality in these vampire novels.This thesis includes an introduction,three chapters and a conclusion as a whole.The first chapter classifies Gabrielle and Claudia into the representatives of women with masculine personality.However,their femininity and masculinity are not integrated harmoniously,thus it confirms the importance of growing into the harmoniously androgynous personality from the imperfect side.The second chapter proposes that Louis and Human Lestat both have feminine personality.Their independence is weakened by their feminine features.Once again,this thesis confirms the importance of harmoniously androgynous personality.The last chapter is the essence of the whole thesis.Vampire Lestat is considered as the best representative of androgynous personality.In addition,Anne Rice also reflects androgynous personality to some extent.She proves the author's concern for creating an ideal image in literary creation.In conclusion: the androgynous personality is a pursuit-worthy personality.We expect to build a harmonious world with the genders coexisting peacefully,which is the highest end of androgyny put forward by its seekers.