Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, 1976
“I see…” said the vampire thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the window. For a long time he stood there against the dim light from Divisadero Street and the passing beams of traffic. …
“But how much tape do you have with you?” asked the vampire, turning now so the boy could see his profile. “Enough for the story of a life?”
“Sure, if it’s a good life. Sometimes I interview as many as three or four people a night if I’m lucky. But it has to be a good story. That’s only fair isn’t it?”
“Admirably fair,” the vampire answered. “I would like to tell you the story of my life then. I would like to do that very much.”
“Great,” said the boy. And quickly he removed the small tape recorder from his brief case, making a check of the cassette and the batteries. …
The vampire moved towards the table and reached for the overhead cord.
At once the room was flooded with a harsh yellow light. And the boy, staring up at the vampire, could not repress a gasp. His fingers danced backwards on the table to grasp the edge. “Dear God!” he whispered, and then he gazed, utterly speechless, at the vampire.
The vampire was utterly white and smooth, as if he were sculpted from bleached bone, and his face was as seemingly inanimate as a statue, except for two brilliant green eyes that looked down at the boy intently like flames in a skull. But then the vampire smiled almost wistfully, and the smooth white substance of his face moved with the infinitely flexible but minimal lines of a cartoon.
The boy shuddered, lifting his hand as if to shield himself from a powerful light. His eyes moved slowly over the finely tailored black coat he’d only glimpsed in the bar, the long folds of the cape, the black silk tie knotted at the throat, and the gleam of the white collar that was as white as the vampire’s flesh. He stared at the vampire’s full black hair, the waves that were combed back over the tips of the ears, the curls that barely touched the edge of the white collar.
“Now, do you still want the interview?” the vampire asked.
The boy’s mouth was open before the sound came out. He was nodding. Then he said, “Yes.”
1)Pick out the characters in the story.
2)Look at the punctuation. Which word(s) best describe the text?
a)Monologue
b)Dialogue
c)Description
3)Find all the words linked to technology.
Can you guess in which century the story is set?
4)Find all the words to describe the vampire’s appearance.
Can you find any similarities with Dracula? And differences?
5)Find words to show the boy’s reaction to the vampire.
Which word(s) best describe his reaction?
a)Disappointed
b)Surprised
c)Terrified
6)Is there any suggestion the vampire might not just be a cruel killer?
Text 2
“Existence, as I’ve said, was possible. There was always the promise behind his[1] mocking smile that he knew great things or terrible things, had commerce with levels of darkness I could not possibly guess at. And all the time, he belittled me and attacked me for my love of the senses, my reluctance to kill, and the near swoon which killing would produce in me. He laughed uproariously when I discovered that I could see myself in a mirror and that crosses had no effect upon me, and would taunt me with sealed lips when I asked about God or the devil. … Now in this strange vampire nature, I felt a profound sadness. But I did not brood over this. Let me not give you that impression, for brooding would have been to me the most terrible waste; but rather I looked around me at all the mortals that I knew and saw all life as precious, condemning all fruitless guilt and passion that would let it slip through the fingers like sand.”
1)Can you guess who is talking in the extract?
2)Paragraph 1 : Find verbs that describe Lestat’s behaviour towards Louis. Do these belong to a particular lexical field?
3)Find words in the text that describe Louis’ behaviour (le comportement).
Which word(s) best describe his behaviour:
a)Curious
b)Not interested
c)Caring
4)Pick out traditional beliefs about vampires.
Are they shown to be real or not?
5)Find words that describe his attitude towards life.
Text 3
“You do dream!” said the boy.
“Often,” said the vampire. “I wish sometimes that I did not. For such dreams, such long and clear dreams I never had as a mortal; and such twisted nightmares I never had either. In my early days, these dreams so absorbed me that often it seemed I fought waking as long as I could and lay sometimes for hours thinking of these dreams until the night was half gone; and dazed by them I often wandered about seeking to understand their meaning. They were in many ways as elusive as the dreams of mortals. I dreamed of my brother, for instance, that he was near me in some state between life and death, calling to me for help. And often I dreamed of Babette; and often - almost always - there was a great wasteland backdrop to my dreams, that wasteland of night I’d seen when cursed by Babette as I’ve told you. It was as if all figures walked and talked on the desolate home of my damned soul.”
1)Find words to describe the different dreams the vampire has.
2)Find words to show whether the vampire understands his dreams or not.
3)Pick out the people the vampire dreams about. What do we learn about them?
4)At the end of the text, the vampire describes his dreams as being: a) Very pleasant b) Cold, empty and barren.
Pick out the words that show this.
5) In the last sentence, find a word that the vampire uses to
describe his state.
Text 4
“His huge shoulder emerged first and one long, loose arm and hand, the fingers curved; then I saw his head. Over his other shoulder he was carrying a body. In the broken doorway he straightened and shifted the weight and stared directly into the darkness towards us. Every muscle in me became iron as I looked at him, saw the outline of his head looming there against the sky. But nothing of his face was visible except the barest glint of the moon on his eye as if it were a fragment of glass. Then I saw it glint on his buttons and heard them rustle as his arm swung free again and one long leg bent as he moved forward and proceeded into the tower right behind us.
I held fast to Claudia, ready in an instant to shove her behind me, to step forward to meet him. But then I saw with astonishment that his eyes did not see me as I saw him, and he was trudging under the weight of the body he carried towards the monastery door. The moon fell now on his bowed head, on a mass of wavy black hair that touched his bent shoulder, and on the full black sleeve of his coat. I saw something about his coat; the flap of it was badly torn and the sleeve appeared to be ripped from the seam. I almost fancied I could see his flesh through the shoulder. At that moment I stepped forward from the wall and went towards him.
No words passed my lips: I knew none to say. I only knew that I moved into the light of the moon before him and that his dark, wavy head rose with a jerk and that I saw his eyes.
For one full instant he looked at me, and I saw the light shining in those eyes and then glinting on two sharp canine teeth; and then a low, strangled cry seemed to rise from the depths of his throat which, for a second, I thought to be my own. The human crashed to the stones, a shuddering moan escaping his lips. And the vampire lunged at me, that strangled cry rising again as the stench of fetid breath rose in my nostrils and the clawlike fingers cut into the very fur of my cape. I fell backwards, my head cracking against the wall, my hands grabbing at his head, clutching a mass of tangled filth that was his hair. At once the wet, rotting fabric of his coat ripped in my grasp, but the arm that held me was like iron; and, as I struggled to pull the head backwards, the fangs touched the flesh of my throat. … I threw my full weight against him and felt his crippled leg buckling. I remember pounding his head over and over, my fingers all but pulling that filthy hair out by the roots, his fangs projected towards me, his hands scratching, clawing at me. We rolled over and over, until I pinned him down again and the moon shone full on his face. And I realized, through my frantic sobbing breaths, what it was I held in my arms. The two huge eyes bulged from naked sockets and two small, hideous holes made up his nose; only a putrid, leathery flesh enclosed his skull, and the rank, rotting rags that covered his frame were thick with earth and slime and blood. I was battling a mindless, animated corpse. But no more.
From above him, a sharp stone fell full on his forehead, and a fount of blood gushed from between his eyes. He struggled, but another stone crashed with such force I heard the bones shatter. … I lay against the wall, staring at the thing, the blood rushing in my ears. Gradually, I realised that Claudia knelt on his chest, that she was probing the mass of hair and bone that had been his head. She was scattering the fragments of his skull. We had met the European vampire, the creature of the Old World. He was dead.”
1)Pick out all the different characters present in the scene.
2)Pick out all the words to describe the place the action happens.
3)a) Pick out all the words to describe the European vampire.
b) Focus on the adjectives to describe him in paragraph 3.
Do they belong to a specific lexical field?
4)Look again at the description of the European vampire, the description of Louis in Text 1, and what we learn about Louis through tests 2 and 3. Do you notice any similarities or differences between them?
5)Louis is a French American vampire from New Orleans. The European vampire is from Transylvania. Is there a special, wider cultural significance to the fact that Louis destroys the other vampire?
[1] Lestat, the vampire that turned Louis into one. He is shown as being controlling but not always very clever.