Psychological Analysis Of Vampire Images In Interview With The Vampire

Anne Rice (1941-), contemporary American writer, is famous for her writing ofvampire novels. Her distinctive and innovative ways of thinking and writing style ingothic literature overthrow the traditional rigid image of the vampire. Rice shows thetruth of realistic world by describing imaginary world, and reflects certain lays of theexistent state and the mental difficulty of the modern human being. Anne Rice'svampires outgrow the features of traditional vampires like pure evil and horrible, andgive a new meaning to the vampire image.Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice's first vampire novel published in1976,has become a cult success and drawn international attention from the critics. Thescholars mainly concentrate on the problems of the minority groups, like the malehomosexual community. Few scholars have analyzed the psychological meaningsymbolized by the vampire images in Interview with the Vampire. The purpose of thisthesis is to give a psychological analysis to the vampire images in Anne Rice'sInterview with the Vampire from the perspective of the theory of Freud's tripartitestructure of psyche. It will start from the development of the story, with focus on thepsychoanalysis of the two vampires (Louis and Claudia) in this novel, so as to explainthe development process of their id, ego and superego, and reveal the features of theirpersonalities. Furthermore, through the psychoanalysis of those vampire images, thispaper also aims to reflect the psychology of Anne Rice and as well as many people ofher generation in20thcentury, and reveal the writing psychology of the author duringher literary composing.Generally speaking, Louis' personality is mainly represent the feature of a "strictsuperego"; while Claudia is pure a representative of the "blind id". The personalities ofthose two protagonists also reveal Anne Rice's writing psychology in the period ofcomposing Interview with the Vampire. Faced with the misfortunes of life, Rice plungesall the feeling of confusion, helplessness, anxiety and despair into her literarycomposing. She uses "vampire", this fantasy figure, to express her suspicion of God andthe confusions towards the human society. These questions manifest Americancontemporaries' religion crisis and self-identity crisis in20thcentury. By doing so, thisthesis hopes to promote the readers' understanding of Interview with the Vampire andits protagonists, increase their knowledge of Anne Rice, and arouse the readers'attention on the internal world of themselves.