The Animal in the Vampire

Throughout “Interview with a Vampire”, the strongest dichotomy that I saw was that of man’s primal, animal nature versus his greater conscience, and which of the two serves as more important. Every character struggles with these opposing forces in some way, and there is no clearer divide between the two than the differences between the protagonist and the antagonist of the book, Louis and Lestat. Louis is very conscious of his human nature. Louis eats only animals for most of his ‘early’ vampire years, almost having fainted as Lestat tried to set him up for his first kill. Lestat, in contrast, loves the thrill of hunting humans, or seducing them, befriending them, getting them to love him, all before committing an ultimate betrayal, and reveling in the sadistic nature of his actions.

Lestat is, in outward appearances, a primal version of man. This version of man is driven by simple things, a desire to eat, a desire to look wealthy and garner social status, and a desire to completely control all those around him. He wants to be an alpha wolf at all times. Louis is a much gentler soul. One of the few times he kills out of outright desire is when he kills Claudia, but it is more out of pity for a young girl with little to no future. Rather than kill out of any desire to induce suffering for pleasure, Louis usually, at the start of the book, only wants to kill to alleviate suffering.

One might assume then that Lestat holds the majority of power throughout the book, but he does not, not always at least. Lestat is constantly shown to be in fear of losing control, and will often take drastic if temporary measures in order to ensure that his comfortable life remains that way. He turns Claudia into a vampire certainly not out of mercy, but as a way to keep Louis attached to him. This decision later comes to haunt him when Claudia is the one, not Louis, who attempts to escape Lestat’s grasp by killing him.

Louis, while never finally ending Lestat, and ending up in a rather undesirable place by the end of his story, shows how human compassion can have its place in a world of monsters. He is constantly trying to make friendships, and these friendships always seem to help pull him out of hard places, even if he doesn’t want them to, or they do it in a way he finds detestable, such as Claudia killing Lestat, from which Louis has a near mental breakdown.

By the end, of course, Louis has accepted more of his primal ‘vampire’ nature. It seems, according to the vampires they found in Eastern Europe, that he is doomed to an eventual complete collapse in his humanity, and a descent into a pure animalistic hunger, but until them he exists in the shadows. He still doesn’t revel in killing, like Lestat did, but he does what he needs to survive while clinging to the remaining shreds of morality he desperately scraps together.