Monday, November 8, 2010

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

Please read up to page 158 (Part One) of Interview with the Vampire. Below are a few questions we'll be exploring this week. Feel free to draw from them, or to develop your own questions. You should also feel free to respond to another student's post.

Your blogs will be due on Wednesday at 11:59 pm.

Your comments on other student blogs will be due by FRIDAY at 11:59.

In addition to your blogs and comments, you also must post in one or more of the discussion forums on my blog by Friday at 11:59 pm. You do NOT have to post in all of the forums, but I will be assessing you on how well you are able to respond to the various prompts and each others' ideas. Remember that Forum C is an open forum, so if there is something you would like to discuss that hasn't been addressed by me or another student, please post there.

1) What differences do you see between the vampire characters in Dracula and I Am Legend and the vampire characters in Interview? Considering our previous encounters with vampires, how do we see the concept of "the monster" being complicated in this novel? Consider the narrative perspective in this novel. How does Louis's first person narrative affect the way in which we view him as a "monster"?


2) What is the significance of slaves and slavery in this novel? How might this aspect of America's corrupt and violent past serve as a metaphor for vampirism in this novel? How is the slave/master relationship evident between several of the characters in this novel? What might be the significance of this theme?


3) What is the significance of religion in this novel? What are some of the depictions of Catholicism in this novel? In broader terms, what sort of theological issues does this novel explore?


4) How might the vampire family we see in this novel be a "queering" of the traditional American nuclear family?

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