27 pages • 54 minutes read
John PolidoriThe Vampyre
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1819A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Lord Ruthven
Lord Ruthven is the story’s titular vampire and antagonist. He appears in the midst of London society one winter and strikes people with his “dead grey eye” (27) and “deadly hue” (28). Polidori uses connotation and repetition to foreshadow the monster underneath Ruthven’s magnetic demeanor. He is impervious to the seductions of women known for their adulterousness and partial to those known for their domestic virtues.
Over the course of his travels with Aubrey, Ruthven gradually reveals his sinister character. Ruthven’s most dangerous personality trait is his charisma, which he uses to manipulate and exploit gamblers, women, and Aubrey. Under the guise of benevolence, he bestows charity upon those he judges as profligate to sink them further in their vices. During their travels, Ruthven seeks out such people at every stop. Watching Ruthven gamble against his victims, Aubrey describes him as a “cat […] dallying with the half-dead mouse,” continuing Polidori’s trend of using language that connotes predators and death to describe Ruthven’s demeanor (35).
Women fare just as badly as gamblers under his influence; The “deformity of their vices” is “unmasked” by their encounters with Ruthven (37). The stories that Aubrey hears of the women whose lives Ruthven ruined confirm his growing suspicion of Ruthven’s evil nature, which Aubrey associates with Ruthven’s “irresistible powers of seduction” (37). Ruthven specifically targets women close to Aubrey, ruining his naïve companion’s life and leading to Aubrey’s death.
Aubrey
Aubrey is the story’s protagonist and a foil to Lord Ruthven. A wealthy young man who was orphaned in his youth, he has only a superficial understanding of the world gleaned from poetry and romance fiction. Aubrey believes that life is structured like a storybook and that “vice was thrown in by [the universe] merely for the picturesque effect of the scene, as we see in romances” (30). Aubrey’s romantic naivety leads him to view Ruthven as a heroic figure of romantic fiction, an ironic assumption given Ruthven’s real nature.
Aubrey’s romantic sensibilities heighten his sense of honor, which he demonstrates by separating himself from Ruthven upon learning that the lord has ruined the reputations of a number of women. Aubrey’s sense of honor falls prey to his Tragic Flaw of naivety. Ruthven uses his sense of honor to bind Aubrey to a promise that ultimately kills Aubrey and his sister. Aubrey suffers from having cultivated “more his imagination than his judgment” (30) and serves as a critique of Romantic thinking; his naivety stems from his love of romance.
Ianthe
Ianthe is Aubrey’s love interest and one of Ruthven’s victims. She is presented as a paragon of innocence. She has an ethereal, fairylike quality: She is described as “beautiful and delicate” (39) like a painter’s model, and her movement is dance-like. Ianthe’s beauty is compared to natural beauty, a hallmark of Romantic poetry and fiction, while the natural world pales in comparison. Polidori’s rapturous descriptions of Ianthe foreshadow Ruthven’s desire to prey on her.
Ianthe sincerely believes in vampire folklore, which Aubrey attributes to her lower-class innocence. Ianthe is a paragon of Women’s Sexuality and Social Roles in Polidori’s late Georgian society; Her innocence, chastity, and presumed virginity made her valuable in the eyes of Polidori’s contemporary readers. Romanticism often idealized rural living, believing it to be more authentic than the social conventions of city-life and allowing for a closer connection to Nature. Ianthe’s lack of socialization in “crowded drawing-rooms and stifling balls” (41) heightens her virtue within the Romantic tradition, also making her a key target for Ruthven. Ianthe’s death awakens Aubrey to Ruthven’s vampire nature.
Aubrey’s Sister
Aubrey’s unnamed sister is a background character who serves as a plot device to heighten the tragedy and melodrama of Aubrey’s downfall. Polidori emphasizes her plainness, in a marked contrast to his descriptions of Ianthe: Aubrey’s sister is “never lit up by the levity of the mind beneath,” and she has a “melancholy charm” which comes through her non-dance-like “sedate and pensive” movements (58-59). Her distinguishing characteristic is her devotion to her brother: She is happiest when she sees her presence help distract Aubrey from the concerns that trouble him. Like Ianthe, she is a virtuous and valuable woman by the standards of Polidori’s society, and she makes a perfect target for Ruthven.
