Iāve been thinking about Laura and Carmilla a bunch lately and couple thoughts have been bouncing around my head as it pertains to their relationship, Lauraās loneliness, and the whole āvampires as a class metaphor.ā
Lauraās family had servants, you canāt maintain an estate without domestic servants. And we know that thereās a village and there are foresters living on the estate. So Lauraās loneliness isnāt a result of any kind of physical isolation from other human beings. She isnāt a princess locked away in a tower far away. Her family are familiar enough with the people of their estate that her father attends the funerals of Carmillaās victims and Laura has at the very least a passing familiarity with the people she is killing. Laura is surrounded by other people: but her class prevents her from forming meaningful connection with them.
Now Laura is never as openly contemptuous of the peasantry as Carmilla is but she never greaves the deaths of Carmillaās lowborn victims the same way she greaves the deaths of Bertha and Carmilla herself.
And it makes me think about how so many sapphic retellings of this story are from the perspective of either Carmilla or Laura and it makes me want to see the story told from one of Lauraās maids or other female domestic servants.






















