Contrasting Themes within Interview with a Vampire 

Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles are one of the more iconic series that depict the character of a vampire. The story of vampirism has been told so many times in the media, that it's hard to find a title within the sea of content that has a unique vision for a vampire character. However, Rice was able to hit it off almost immediately, by threatening classic tropes within the "genre" of vampire stories and create them into creatures that are sexier and more human, causing to even create the trope of the "sexy vampire". Although there were sticklers for the traditional horror that lies within vampirism, many were eager to latch onto a story of these blood-sucking supernatural creatures that weren't grounded in horror, which moved onto set the stage for other popular series that depict vampirism in a more human light. 

Despite Anne Rice's deviation from the classic horror take on vampires, she still uses many vampire tropes to annunciate many of the themes she brings to light in her books. In Interview with a Vampire, Rice pits the concept of "human nature" against that of a "vampiristic" or non-human nature, against each other in order to explore the higher concept of morality. Rice takes the trope of vampires being a creature grounded in "evil" by relation to the devil and darkness and spins it into a point of conflict for the main character, Louis. Despite his turning, Louis still thinks very much like a human, feeling horrified at the thought of killing another living human in order for him to survive. He is frequently tormented by his existence and also hold a great disdain for his other vampire companion, Lestat. Lestat is much more comfortable in his vampirism, having hundreds of more years of experience on Louis and often judges Louis for being so hesitant in accepting his now immortal status. Lestat serves as a foil for Louis, showing Louis how "heartless" and "evil" a vampire can be, in Lestat's lack of empathy for humans, how he enjoys hunting and playing around with his prey. It was definitely not an easy transition for Louis to have gone from a normal human to vampire and then meeting a vampire that has more or less abandoned his human status.

I think Anne Rice was quite bold with her work, especially taking in what was the norm for the vampire trope back in her time. Lestat is a character that definitely broke tradition and his homoerotic subtext with Louis definitely would have stirred up controversy. I think it was refreshing to see someone take the concept of immortality and explore how that could change someone's moral alignments not just in terms of killing and hunting, but also in the way of gender and sexuality.