A Gothic Landscape
The place where Laura lives is picturesque and marvelous: “The forest opens in an irregular and very picturesque glade before its gate, and at the right a steep Gothic bridge carries the road over a stream that winds in deep shadow through the wood” (2). It is also a very lonely place, with the nearest inhabited village about 7 miles to the left and 20 miles to the right. Nevertheless, Laura likes the place because it has a special, dreamy atmosphere. As soon as Le Fanu presents this image of the environs where the story will take place, he gives the reader the sense that magical, strange, and unearthly things could easily happen here.
An Early Fright
Laura's most vivid memory is from when she is a child. She awoke and saw a young lady standing at her bad. She thought that it was her nurse at first but then she realized that she has never seen this lady before. The lady was beautiful and kind: “she caressed me with her hands, and lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her smiling” (3). Laura wasn’t scared, she was calm and very soon she fell asleep again. But then she wakened by the sensation “as if two needles ran into my breast very deep” (3). At the same moment the girl cried loudly and the young lady slipped down upon the floor. This imagery is quite important because it foreshadows the future events of the story, and creates the an ominous and unstable mood.
Full Moon
The full moon is a symbol of night and creates an effect of mystery and magic, with Laura explaining that Mademoiselle believed of the moon that “it acted on dreams, it acted on lunacy, it acted on nervous people, it had marvelous physical influences connected with life” (6). Laura loves the full moon, but she also feels the influence the moon has on her mindset. Mademoiselle helps this along, saying dreamily, “The moon is full of idyllic and magnetic influence—and see, when you look behind you at the front of the schloss how all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery splendor, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to the receive fairy guests” (6). This imagery enforces the mood of the narrative—mysterious, luminous, and supernatural.
Carmilla's Memory
When Carmilla is telling Laura about a ball she attended, she says, "I remember everything about it—with an effort. I see it all, as divers see what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but transparent" (25). This is a compelling image, for in our mind's eye we can see the fogginess of her memory. We are underwater, looking up, seeing the hazy outlines of something familiar yet distorted by the water. It is perfect way to encapsulate how Carmilla's 150 years of memories exist in her mind.
