ENA’S SHINING EYES: NEGOTIATING VAMPIRISM IN NADA BY CARMEN LAFORET

Abstract

This article advances a reading of Carmen Laforet’s 1945 novel Nada through the lens of gothic imagery and vampirism to explore the ways in which the author both significantly contributes to and continues an intertextual literary tradition dating back to the nineteenth century foregrounding the agency and subjectivity of female characters. The allusions and presence of vampirism interwoven throughout the text at once subvert the locus of narrative agency and interrogate traditional notions of heteronormative and patriarchal gender norms in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Spanish society while highlighting the bonds of female friendship and the open exploration of sexuality. The presence of the female vampire as a narrative device in the novel thereby actively engages a feminist criticism openly questioning historically imposed gender distinctions, the roles of women in private and public spheres, and the process of identity formation.