Interview with the Vampire - Claudia character in-role

[ChloChloAriadne]

So, for English we're doing character in-roles. I've just completed my first draft. I'm doing Claudia from the book Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. I'd recommend not reading this if you're in the early stages of the book, or plan on reading it some time in the future and don't want to be spoilered.

I realise that it's not great, but that's because it IS a first draft, and I thought I'd chuck it up here to get some feedback on it so I can actually improve it.

It's set almost directly after

Spoiler: Claudia slits Lestat's throat.

I've made it so she comes back in the room and has a little monologueing session.


Please comment ^^;


**


Please don’t tell Louis I’m out here. He wouldn’t want me brooding over a dead body. But I’m not brooding, not even close to it. I just… had to see if it’s true. And it is… I’m free. My Lestat, my creator, is dead, and I am free. Oh, I know I should feel bad. Bad… That’s barely even an appropriate word for the act I have committed. For what I have done, killing one of my own kind, a vampire just like me… and my creator of all vampires, I should feel like an utter abomination. But I don’t. For when I drew that blade across his neck, felt it slice through his cold, supple flesh, saw the blood burst forwards and redden his once pale clothing, I knew that me and my love, Louis, would finally be free.

Yes, Louis too drank from me, but it was Lestat who made me what I am now. He gave me his blood; let me drink the smooth liquid as though it was just milk, never telling me that it was a curse he carried in his veins, one which would for all eternity condemn me to this… to life as a child, forever. But I’m not a child, however I look. I haven’t been a child for so long… so long it’s been since I’ve had a childish thought, yet in this ridiculous childish shell I’ll remain for all eternity!

But no… I don’t hate Louis. Lestat was a teacher to me, of sorts, but Louis has been my parent. He has cared for me and loved me in ways that Lestat never did. And even when he got angry at me he has never got truly angry, never yelled at me as if I were a child like Lestat did. Louis has never treated me like a child. He sees me for what I am, not what I look like. But Lestat…

I hate him. How could he possibly know how this feels? He grew up, he had his life. I have not and never will. I see women on the street, happy with their lovers and families, so beautiful and I wish I could be them. But because of Lestat I can never be like that.

Lestat, can you see now why I killed you? Look what you’ve done to me, what you’ve sentenced me to. Even though you are dead, I hate you with all of me, but at least now you cannot terrorise me any further, you cannot keep me trapped under your will. Louis and I are free, and never again will you hurt us.

Tomorrow, it will all be done. We will dump this shell, this body Louis once inhabited, for his flesh to be devoured by swamp creatures and his bones to be picked at by any passing birds.

We will pack all our valuable items from this house. All the books from the library, all our beautiful clothes. We won’t tell anybody where we’re going… We really have nobody to tell.

And then we will leave. I really do want to see the world. We will travel to every country, enjoying the art and theatre and different people, and maybe even one day we will find others of our own kind. It is scary, though, to think that there may be others. Sixty-five years have passed with just us three and there were many years before that in which it was only Lestat and Louis. The thought of there being others is… Strange and yes, frightening. So long I’ve known a world just of us three and all those humans.

But Lestat came from France, didn’t he? See, if he came from France, somebody, another vampire there must have made him and another must have made that one! There must be more of us, otherwise we wouldn’t exist.

Why didn’t I think of this before? Why didn’t I realise that there literally must be more of us? I do wonder if Louis realised this… Oh, I have to tell him this tomorrow. I will tell him that we have to go to France, so that we can once and for all see where we came from, see why we’re here.

So this is it… I suppose our plan is set. Now, goodbye, for I must get some rest, as tomorrow we set off to France.

[Sinister]

Such an odd character Claudia was, she went back and forth between hating Louis and loving Lestat and vice versa throughout all of the series. But above all, she hated how Lestat forever looked on her like a child. She'd never forgive him for treating her as something she had considered to have risen far beyond.

Oh poor Claudia. Oh well.

It's a fantastic Monologue, actually.


This may be a mistake or you may have meant it figuratively:

We will dump this shell, this body Louis once inhabited, for his flesh to be devoured by swamp creatures and his bones to be picked at by any passing birds.

But it has a good place in the book. It gives voice to a lot of things Claudia must've thought and said but that Ann Rice never blessed us with...


It was well done and I'd have liked to hear you perform it too! It's all the more heart wrenching when you hear that Ann based the character of Claudia after her own child that died when she was six.

-Sin