Lestat the Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice\'s Series

Lestat

The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice's series of contemporary novels, contained fascinating tales of love and death using the gory and overtly sexual vampire mythology as a literary backdrop. The vampire aesthetic of immortality, bloodlust and gothic art provide a romantic backdrop to Rice's thrilling work and character development. Throughout these novels, the vampire character, Lestat de Lioncourt, was often the focus of the violently romantic stories of these superhuman creatures that prey upon humans and drink blood to survive. Lestat, or "The Brat Prince" as he is often named, is a bisexual, immortal being, known as a fan of art and music provided the context of these stories. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the Lestat character, and his varying levels of authority and power described in the two novels Interview with a Vampire, and Queen of the Damned.

Interview With A Vampire, Rice's first novel, introduced the character of Lestat. The story revolves around a story telling session between Louis, a former vampire associate of Lestat and an eager reporter. Throughout this session, Lestat's exploits are described in bloody detail by Louis in violent and sexual tones. Lestat was highlighted as an authoritative leader with a desire to hold control and power of others. This was demonstrated by his desires to create a vampire family by adopting Louis as his protege hunter as they preyed on innocent victims to satisfy their blood lust. Lestat's obsession with controlling his destiny was fully expressed as the plot to adopt a dying girl, Claudia, into his and Louis' circle of power.

Lestat is allowed to unleash his controlling powers over his new makeshift family manifesting the true character of authority. Rice demonstrated the apparent magical power the authoritative voice of Lestat commands over the other players in the story. To add context, the story often interjects inklings about Lestat's historical past that help contrast the emotional complexities of commanding authority. Lestat's new found family now provides meaning and purpose to his killings and exploits, whereas before they were done to only satisfy himself. These elements of the story focused on the fulfilling properties of power and aim to have Lestat represent a creation of this as both the giver and taker of life and its rewards.

As this gory and gruesome story continued, Louis and Claudia seemingly broke free of Lestat's power over their wishes as they attempted to murder Lestat, which failed but permitted their escape. Here, it appears Rice is using Lestat to highlight the darker sides of desire by staging this revolution. This common theme of breaking away places Lestat at the head of the family and Louis and Claudia as the rebellious children. This newly crowned head of power, taking the form of the vampire Lestat, now represents the oppressing forces to Louis and Claudia, the victims of circumstance and eternal life and all humanity experiences. Lestat continued to develop, not necessarily as a hero or villain in this portrayal, instead, he represented an immovable force of existence and everlasting life. The god figure that is often depicted in religious and spiritual contexts and stories now rings true of Rice's vampire god. His often homoerotic fantasies, played out in murderous escapades show the varying tastes for evil and good that accompany the authoritarian way of living further supporting the idea of the chaotic and awesome powers the gods of nature and circumstance unify in Lestat. Like man's futile attempts to escape his fate, the grip of Lestat was too strong to ever repel his family forever. Claudia and Louis seem to never quite escape Lestat in this story as their murderous plan to relieve their fears failed to extinguish the everlasting Brat Prince.

The transformation of Lestat from one side of authority to the other was depicted in Rice's third novel of the series entitled Queen of the Damned. In this novel, Lestat adopts the role of the narrator of this story and is placed in a unique subservient role not seem before in Rice's other works. Whereas in Interview With A Vampire, Lestat was held with more reverence, this novel gives Lestat more humanity and empathy, reinforced by his language, dress and choice of friends, enemies and adventurers. Rock and roll has replaced Bach as his preferred music corresponding to an emotional and empathetic trend towards the human spirit. The Queen of the Damned continued the story of Lestat and his vampire adventures using many different techniques not seen in previous sections of this series. The most significant and deliberate changes dealt with the historical content and point-of-view from which the story is being told. Unlike in other previous works, Rice used Lestat as the narrator and guide of this book and, as a result, we are led into his state of mind directly hearing his words and comparisons to describe his life and trials. This utilization creates new attitudes about Lestat because of the personal nature first person narration often provides. Unlike Interview With A Vampire, Louis' opinion does not distort the true Lestat in this story as firsthand accounts of his personal vampire ecstasy are lived out in his own words. This more human, vulnerable form of Lestat demonstrated Rice was trying to show the human side of vampire mythology, possibly to exemplify and develop this character to its fullest and most honest representation and artistically communicate a truer form of human expression.

As this story continued Lestat was often targeted by more powerful beings and vampires thus demonstrating a new lack of authority. Upon waking a more powerful being, Ashaka, Lestat falls under the spells of her controlling ways. Realizing the shift in power when Lestat bows down to a superior goddess for fear, contrasted the egomaniacal tyrant seen oppressing Claudia and Louis in the previous stories. The Queen of The Damned's historical perspective also put Lestat on the outside looking in as opposed to previous novels. The rich history and mystical properties of the origination of vampires is documented in this tale using Lestat as in interpreter and not as the originator. Here, Lestat is not the one in charge to make things in his image like the familiar gods of our time. Rather, he is subject to the winds of power and the unknowing nature of fate that human beings encounter in their experiences and tribulations. This theme is once again reinforced by the detailed and intricate narration of the origins of vampires that discuss the curses of life and death using rich details describing bloody murder, sexual liberation and artistic indulgence.