Carmilla's Daughters: Constructing and Characterizing the Sapphic Monster

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In this presentation, Grace O'Mara charts depictions of the “sapphic monster” across time and medium, constructing an archetype by delineating her characteristics and narrative presence. O'Mara analyzes three recurring tropes that define the sapphic monster: her weaponized and dehumanized body, her quest for revenge against sexual violence, and her calculated positioning for a presumptive male audience. The presentation establishes that Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is a foundational text in studying the sapphic monster and must be repeatedly referenced to understand her evolution, specifically as she reemerges as the “lesbian vampire” in 1970s erotic horror film and as avenger of sexual violence in contemporary works. Theories on the monstrous feminine, female desire, and the abject from Barbara Creed, Linda Williams, and Carol J. Clover allow O'Mara to connect the sapphic monster to the broader category of the female monster. O'Mara evaluates scholarship on the “lesbian vampire” trope and argues that a more expansive conceptualization of this figure is needed to address contemporary texts. Ultimately, the presentation demonstrates how the sapphic monster is primarily abject not because of her association with femininity, but because of her proximity to queerness. Analysis of the sapphic monster is critical in understanding current heteropatriarchal anxieties of queerness and sapphisms.