Interview With the Vampire

Part 1 introduces the reader to Louis, Lestat, the city of New Orleans, and the questions that will haunt Louis in his life and afterlife.

Rice uses the boy and the interview as a framing device. The interview comprises a piece of fiction within a larger work of fiction: the fictional interview inside of the novel. Given the question-and-answer format of the interview, Rice can give Louis a chance to indulge in expository dialogue that is well-suited to the interview format but would be unwieldy and low-effort in the actual prose. During the prose, Rice uses Louis’s perceptions to write in an ornate, flowery style that would seem odd and overdone in speech (even though the prose is a recounting of Louis’s story, as told to the boy). It can also be argued that such an ornate speaking style could come naturally to someone who grew up at the end of the 18th century and who has had centuries to refine his eloquence.

There are few clues at this point as to why Louis wishes to tell his story, although this will become clearer as the interview concludes in Part 4.

Louis’s character arc begins in unhappiness and never develops into full-blown contentment. After his brother’s death, he thinks he “lived like a man who wanted to die but who had no courage to do it himself” (11). He will always—as far as the reader will see—struggle with questions about the meaning of life and death, the nature of love and evil, and whether he is damned. His Catholic upbringing comes with a certain amount of guilt built into him, and his coming struggles will only exacerbate his unease with morality. His unhappiness increases throughout the story. He evolves but without optimism. This is largely because he is predisposed to believe in evil, and now he is a creature that must commit what he considers evil acts to survive: “People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil. I don’t know why. No, I do indeed know why. Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult” (13).

From his first appearance, Lestat manifests as something like Freud’s theory of the Id: the impulsive, pleasure-seeking part of the psyche that makes people into engines of pure appetite. He is hedonistic, uninterested in ethical questions and existential dilemmas, and is immediately frustrated by Louis’s handwringing over killing. After the initial connection of their mingling blood, there is no more intimacy between them. Louis now faces the prospect of eternity with someone to whom he feels no intimate connection.

As the interview goes on, the reader is given increased insight into Lestat’s character. He has greater depths than were hinted at previously, but he is also shallower and crueler. Despite his insistence that Louis should leave his mortal life behind, Lestat is not able to easily abandon his father. Lestat blames his father for not giving him more opportunities during a difficult childhood, resulting in a predilection for killing young men before they can truly begin exploring their lives. Louis may continue to cling to his humanity out of a reverence for life, but Lestat is similarly enmeshed with humanity: If his years are to be spent reenacting revenge on his father and the world, he requires humans and humanity to exercise vengeance.

Louis’s vulnerability and sensitivity put him in danger with Babette. He convinces himself that, because he has helped her, she will always support him. However, after the plantation fire, he learns that she, like most others on the plantation, believes he is from the devil. Louis respects Babette’s strength, character, and most importantly, her judgment: If she thinks he is from the devil, despite whatever help he has given her, then perhaps he is. He believed that some form of love existed between them, but when Babette sets him on fire, any delusion that love could truly exist between a mortal and a vampire—or at least between this vampire and this mortal—is extinguished forever. Babette represents a crossroads for Louis. If she cannot think highly of even his good deeds, then he will find little reason to do so.

It is Louis’s obsession with dissecting the minutiae of his vampire and human natures that provides the starkest contrast with Lestat. Lestat has zero interest in the topics that preoccupy Louis. He doesn’t want a contemplative life and has no interest in justifying his existence or his appetites in a philosophical framework. He wants to leave all his humanity behind, and now that his father is gone Lestat knows it might finally be possible. He and Louis grow unhappier with each other on every page, but there is no catalyst yet for their separation. Rice has now set the stage for Claudia’s entrance into their lives, which will galvanize them both.