Interview With The Vampire: Immortality Kinda Sucks (Part 1)

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Interview With The Vampire is Anne Rice’s classic not-quite-erotica novel of love, death, humanity, and grief. Using the archetypal vampire, Rice explores these concepts once you add immortality into the mix, which of course makes even the most basic friendships much more complicated. While immortality seems great to us mortal humans, could we even possibly fathom what hundreds if not thousands of years must do to someone psychologically (especially when murder is necessary for survival)? Each of the major characters in the novel reflect one of the gravest downfalls of immortality: change. On top of it all, their relationships only intensify their different-yet-horrible situations.

Death is the ultimate bringer of change, which permeates the life of a vampire. Louis, who is the one recounting the novel, struggles with this reality the most out of all the vampire. He was manipulated by Lestat into becoming a vampire during a period of great depression and grief, which he seems to carry throughout the novel. When he ceases to mourn the loss of his brother, he is mourning the loss of his humanity. When he isn’t mourning the loss of his humanity, he’s mourning the loss of the life he had as a family with Lestat and Claudia (despite the awful, awful situation it was). Louis is constantly seeking stability of some sort throughout the novel, which is never able to truly claim.

Nowhere is this greater highlighted than in his unstable relationship with Lestat. Lestat is cruel, manipulative, emotional volatile, and everything that Louis stands against. A relationship with him is not going to be happy or stable. Lestat murders without second thought and treats the act of feeding almost like a game, fully embracing his lack of humanity. Lestat has no problem being a Grim Reaper, the bringer of change. Louis, meanwhile, struggles with it. He refuses to lose sight of his humanity, and tries to avoid killing as much as he can. He still has enough empathy and the memory of his brother’s death remains clear enough that he refuses to bring this to other people. This contrast in personality is one of the many reasons the Louis grows to despise Lestat.

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