Vampirism as a (Timeless) Image : Interpretation of Angela Carter's Radio Play "Vampirella"

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2 (B), University of Frankfurt (Main) (Institute for England and American Studies), language: English, abstract: Thinking about the success of the scaring black-and-white movies with the famous vampire ‘Dracula’ in the 1950’s, the popularity of ‘The Small Vampire’ Rüdiger in the 1980’s or the effect of modern versions like ‘Interview with the Vampire’ or ‘Buffy – the Vampire Slayer’ nowadays, it appears that people never get enough from mystic, sometimes a little bit horrified stories about vampires, wolves and werewolves, dark castles, everlasting life & beauty and more things, which could neither be explained nor proved in reality. The British prose author and feminist philosopher of English literature Angela Carter (*1940 – 1992) knew the great fascination of folkloric material like fairy tales and superstitious legends well; and she made it to one of her favourite subjects of her literary work. With numerous, renewed fairy tales, novels, short stories, plays and verses she satisfied peoples’ desire for gothic and surrealistic stories diverting them from every-day-life. Due to the fact that the British Broadcasting Corporation’s radio plays had flourished in Britain after the Second World War and a lot of people enjoyed listening to them, Angela Carter paid attention to this sub-genre of drama and wrote several radio plays, too. Her first radio play Vampirella - broadcasted on 20th July 1976 in Radio 3 - was born as such. Even a quick listening (or rather reading) of the radio play reveals, that the serio-comedy Vampirella offers a lot of interesting aspects which cannot be seen immediately, but should be recognised by all means. This interpretation focuses on its peculiarities, which originate from the problematic theme of Vampirism on the one hand and the composite art of the young medium radio on the other hand. Moreover, it is a text-centred interpretation that analyses the text and not the author’s intention or the individual impression. Beginning with the obvious, the formal interpretation of structural features as time, place, action and characters and the radiophonic elements, the analysis will shift to the central themes and conflicts of the radio play. Above all the topic of Vampirism as a (Timeless) Image will appear again and again. Having been provided with various quotations from Vampirella it should be possible to get a sense of Angela Carter’s unmistakable style and to imagine the female-interpreted story in mind, although the real radio listening experience is missing.