![]() ![]() Predating Le Fanu’s Carmilla by half a century and Dracula by nearly eight decades, The Vampyre broke with the folklore tradition of vampire stories and established what would become a convention of the genre by introducing sexuality and sexual seduction as key qualities of the modern vampire. ![]() Ultimately, they are easy prey for men in general, and for Lord Ruthven in particular. The narrator harshly describes women who do not meet this standard as "female hunters of notoriety." Presumably, this description reflects 19th-century English society's judgment toward women who deviated from the norm by showing any expression of their sexuality.Īt the same time, the author portrays the women who are virtuous-like Ianthe and Miss Aubrey-as helpless. Moreover, in the upper-class British society that Polidori depicts in The Vampyre, women are expected to be pure and innocent. The fictional letter-writer presents men as more intelligent and capable than women, referring to just one or two female authors or scholars who have really proven their "often claimed equality with, the nobler man." ![]() From the first paragraphs of the letter extract that opens the novella, it is evident that the story depicts a society that looks down on women and judges their actions by a stricter standard. ![]()
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