The Neo-Gothicism World Of Interview With The Vampire By Anne Rice

Interview with the Vampire, published in 1976, is one of the most important representative works of Anne Rice and considered as the Bible by vampires fans and researchers. This thesis aims at analyzing this novel in terms of the theory of Neo-Gothicism's.This thesis is to demonstrate that the novel Interview with the Vampire is not only the heritage of the early gothic literature as most critics have concluded, but also a typical Neo-Gothicism text. Introducing the characteristics of Neo-Gothicism, this thesis is to discuss the new gothic world in Anne Rice's vampire fiction.This thesis is divided into four chapters. Chapter One deals with Gothic tradition of American literature and Anne Rice's new Gothic world, represents the early Gothic heritage in Rice's novel and introduces the origin and characters of Neo-Gothicism to provide a theoretical framework based on which the thesis develops. Chapter Two is devoted to analyzing the way Rice characterizes the vampires in the novel, representing the humanized vampires Rice created. In addition, this part probes the psychological world of vampires. Chapter Three discusses the vampires' role as metaphors in modern society, exploring important contemporary social issues in Western culture. Chapter Four gives a brief summary and conclusion of the thesis and raises questions of the ambiguous ending of the novel for further research.