Online Artifact

The Irish Famine and Vampirism

J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s, “Carmilla” is a mysterious story about an unexpected visitor who befriends a lonely young girl in a desolate castle in Styria. Upon reading we discover that the visitor (Carmilla) is very strange and mysterious. The narrator, Laura feels drawn towards Carmilla, but she also feels uncomfortable by some of Carmilla’s unsettling sexual advances. At first, Laura is stricken with horror when she notices the resemblance of Carmilla of that of the young girl from her disturbing dream. In the dream, Laura was awoken in her night chamber by a beautiful stranger who then pierced her in the breast. Despite the dream, the two girls become fast companions. However, Laura’s health begins to wane and Carmilla’s strange disappearance in the night lends suspicion to the reader. The story progresses, (I will go into more detail later) and we learn that Carmilla is a Vampire. I found this story very interesting and engaging. I am very interested in vampire stories, as dorky as it sounds, I love the Charlene Harris and Stephenie Meyer series. Upon research I begin to look up vampire literature in relation to the Irish Famine. I found two separate online artifacts that I would like to share and analyze in relation to Carmilla:
Online Artifact number one: “The Irish Famine as Represented in Nineteenth-Century Literature - Famine Novels” Enotes.com.
and Online Artifact number two:
“As Irish as the vampire” Literary Service


The first artifact, The Irish Famine as Represented in Nineteenth Century Literature (posted by enotes.com) discusses the Irish famine in great detail. It explains that in 1845 the potato crop failed in Ireland causing widespread hunger and starvation. This crop failure also led to disease and millions of people died during this time period. The cause of the famine was due to the disease commonly known as potato blight which was basically a fungus in the rotting potatoes. The interesting thing about this article is that it compares the history of the famine to the literature that was produced during this particular time period. The article states that,

“Critics note that the literature of this time period is scarred with incomplete, disjointed images—such as the "skeletal spectre" of death—which recur throughout the poetry and prose. Many Famine writers begin to describe a scene of a starving child, or a cabin whose emaciated inhabitants lie dead in the corner, only to abruptly depart from the image, refusing to detail it further. Often the same writers note their uncertainty regarding their ability, or even their right, to describe with words the horror of the Famine. This uncertainty, and these fragmented images, are the thread which binds together the vast array of Famine literature” (enotes).

I found this really interesting because Le Fanu’s “Carmilla” encompasses this image of death and a tone of melancholy throughout the story. In the beginning of “Carmilla” the narrator describes the setting as lonely and solitary.

“I have said “the nearest inhabited village,” because there is, only three miles westward, that is to say in the direction of General Spielsdorf’s schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little church, now roofless, in the aisle of which are the mouldering tombs of the proud family of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally desolate chateau which, in the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of the town. Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time” (“Carmilla” Chapter 1)

This quote from “Carmilla” relates to enotes description of 19th century literature because, Although Le Fanu doesn’t directly state the reason for the desertion of Styria, he does allude to the idea that something awful has happened to cause such abandonment. The novel is sort of redundant as it describes how the area surrounding the schloss is inhabited for miles and that the nearest “village” is pretty much empty. As a reader you sort of begin to question why this area was so isolated. Looking through the lens of the Irish Famine, you will notice how similar this isolation is. Much of Ireland was deserted and many people emigrated out of the country during this time.

During the time that this novel is written, the online artifact makes clear that this time period in Ireland was a very depressing, troubling time so it makes sense as to why the literature might be dark and melancholy as well. Also, in the novel the narrator (Laura) grows very ill. In the beginning of the story we learn that General Spielsdorf’s niece also grows very ill and eventually dies. It seems that the entire novel is shadowed with illness, at least this is what I interpreted from Le Fanu’s writing. I imagined every character that Le Fanu described as weak, frail and tired looking.

“It was now three weeks since the commencement of this unaccountable state. My sufferings had, during the last week, told upon my appearance. I had grown pale, my eyes were dilated and darkened underneath, and the languor which I had long felt began to display itself in my countenance” (“Carmilla” Chapter 7).

Perhaps the writers during the time period were so distraught by the famine that it reflects in their writing. The first online artifact suggests that much of the literature during this time period was indeed “edged with agony and despair. The first artifact states that “the themes of eviction, starvation, and emigration are highly prevalent in Famine poetry.” The article also leads to the idea that perhaps writers during this time wrote about such dark things to sort of express as to what the people were going through during this time. This article basically says that the famine was actually compared in contrast to the Holocaust. Writers during this time weren’t even sure how to describe the incommunicable horror they witnessed during the famine. Perhaps that’s why the literature during this time portrays scary stories, isolation, death, mystery, etc.

The second online artifact that I have listed is from a website called literaryservice.com. If you scroll down towards the bottom of the article you will see an analysis of Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” This article suggests that “Carmilla” is a political allegory. It states that the setting of the story is the substitute to 19th century Ireland.

“The English narrator, Laura, and her father live an isolated existence that parallels that of the Anglo-Irish gentry of the period. They live near "a ruined village" that resembles the results of Irish depopulation after the great famine of 1845-49. The extinct "proud family of Karnstein" is a parallel for the extinction of much of the Irish peerage after the Act of Union of 1800. After 1800, no new Irish peerage could be created without the extinction of three old ones, thus the aristocracy was "only able to regenerate by a sort of legalistic vampirism." Carmilla, an undead member of the otherwise defunct Karnsteins, "[l]ike the Irish peerage...needs extinctions to revive." The three young women who expire in the story equate with the "three Irish peerages required before a new one can come alive" (literaryservice.com).

This article implies that if you scrutinize various parts of “Carmilla” you will notice the parallels of the Anglo-Irish period or the Irish famine. Perhaps Le Fanu brought in vampirism to correspond with the death and agony from the famine. In Chapter 5 of “Carmilla” the narrator is describing Carmilla as looking ill and weak. The following quote directly mentions a strange epidemic that has invaded the country. This leads me to believe that this was incorporated into the novel to correspond with the Irish Famine.

“You look ill, Carmilla; a little faint. You certainly must take some wine,” I said.
“Yes. I will. I’m better now. I shall be quite well in a few minutes. Yes, do give me a little wine,” answered Carmilla, as we approached the door. “Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall see the moonlight with you.”
“How do you feel now, dear Carmilla? Are you really better?” I asked.
I was beginning to take alarm, lest she should have been stricken with the strange epidemic that they said had invaded the country about us” (“Carmilla” Chapter 5).

As we all know, vampires are described as dead beings that lie in a coffin and feed off of the blood of other living beings. I believe that the reason Le Fanu incorporated vampirism into this novel was to encompass the image of death. This novel was written shortly after the Irish Famine. During the famine millions of people died. Like a lot of literature, this novel compares to the historical events that take place during its time. I bet many scholarly historians could pick apart each part of the novel, even vocabulary and find ways it relates to the Irish Famine.

The narrator in the story is of English decent, although the setting where she lives is in Austria. The narrator, (Laura) and her father must have emigrated from England. Although, the novel never explicitly states why they emigrated there, it leads the reader to wonder. During the Famine, millions of people emigrated from Ireland because of the potato disease. As we can see, many of the proceedings that take place in the novel directly relate to the history during this time period. I brought forth these artifacts because after discovering them I reread parts of “Carmilla” and saw various similarities to the famine and the novel that I did not notice before. I hope that some of my examples help you to see through this lens as well.

Works Cited

Fanu, J. Sheridan Le, and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Carmilla. Chicago: Valancourt
Books, 2009. Print.


“As Irish as the vampire” Literary Service

“The Irish Famine as Represented in Nineteenth Century Literature- Famine Novels” Enotes.com