Thanks for the compliment on my blergh! ^_______^
This is a tough question for many reasons. It’s hard to know what speaks to you about Vampire Fiction, it may be something different than what speaks to me. I think you should watch the movie again and choose a scene that you love!
As far as the “how that fiction portraits male and/or female characteristics,” I’m not sure what your professor is specifically looking for in that regard. Many of the VC vampires do not necessarily conform to gender stereotypes in the way that they act or present themselves. In the real world, gender presentation can vary widely historically and geographically.*
One example that comes to mind, for me, is Lestat’s turning of Claudia.
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Lestat says in the book: “I am like a mother… I want a child!” Are men not equally capable of having that desire? Is it a female characteristic specifically? I don’t know the answer. But this is an example of a scene in which using the book would be better than the movie, because this line was not in the movie.
BTW, this line comes at the end of the often-quoted “Evil is a point of view” monologue, where Lestat talks about the vampires being like God. God creates life, and Lestat wants to do so, too. Is God necessarily female in this regard? I don’t know that either.
In the movie, Louis only tries to stop Lestat in one small, feeble attempt, by catching his hand before it starts, and Lestat places some of the blame on Louis by asking him, “Do you want her to die, then?” Movie!Louis seems to accept some of the blame by allowing Lestat to proceed in ‘giving Claudia another life,’ and we see Louis watch like a nervous father might watch his wife giving birth, with equal parts wonder and horror at the obvious pain involved.
In the movie, his wife had died in childbirth, was he present for that?
Does that then give Louis the male characteristics? This scene happened in a slightly different (but significantly so) way in the book, which I’m not going into since this is already a longish post.
Another example is when Louis carries Yvette out of the plantation house.
^In this scene, it’s evocative of the traditional image of a man carrying his wife across the threshold, away from her friends and/or family, into the home they will share together. Louis is doing it in reverse. He’s carrying her out of the house, bc he has killed her, and is now returning her to her friends and/or family. Later in the movie, Santiago tries to convince a mortal woman to become Death’s Bride. Yvette was one, for sure.
So I would say that Louis has the traditionally male characteristics here.
There is so much more to both of these scenes, in my opinion, but I think I’ll stop here bc I don’t know if you are also supposed to do analysis and I wouldn’t want to do your analysis for you! I hope that’s okay with you, and I hope this answer helped inspire you to choose a scene that speaks to you.
*Even in the 2nd book in VC, when Gabrielle (a female character) chooses to cut her hair short and wear men’s clothing, it is unclear whether she (A) wants to be male, (B) does not want to be perceived as female, © simply would prefer the more practical freedom of movement in men’s clothing at that time, or (D) some other reason(s). She asks Lestat to call her by her name instead of “Mother,” which gives little further clarification to her preference for taking on a more male appearance. Today, women wear pants and other clothing that used to be considered male-specific, but these women do not necessarily identify as male.
I-want-my-IWTV 