Claudia

Character Analysis

My Father He Killed Me. My Other Father, He Ate Me

Claudia might be the novel's most complicated character.

Because Lestat converts her when she's only five years old, we don't know anything about her pre-vampire life. Since Louis and Lestat are basically her two dads, she inherits a few characteristics from both. Louis tells us, "From me she had learned the value of money, but from Lestat she had inherited a passion for spending it" (2.39). She also has Louis's desire for knowledge coupled with Lestat's brutal cruelty. Her cruelty might even exceed Lestat's. Louis fears that she is "less human than either of us, less human than either of us might have dreamed" (1.654).

With her intelligence and her capacity for violence, it's easy to forget that she's trapped in a child's body. She's often described as "sensual" (1.395), and "her eyes were a woman's eyes" (1.395). That's a totally creepy image. And speaking of creepy, her relationship with Louis can be seem a little skeevy at times, since Louis is cast as a strange combo of father-figure and paramour. It's just another part of her complicated nature: is it the age of the body that matters, or the age of the mind?

Because Your Dad Says So

Claudia's eternal frustration comes from her desire to be treated as an adult, even though she's trapped in a child's body. Louis feels bad about doing this, lamenting, "How many times I must have forgotten, spoken to her as if she were the child" (3.207).

Because she's always being treated as a child, she's often the subject of manipulation. She was created out of manipulation: Lestat only turned her in order to keep Louis on board. Lestat even has the gall to tell Claudia this, saying, "[Louis] was going to go away. But now he's not. Because he wants to stay and take care of you and make you happy" (1.398). Talk about a guilt trip.

Claudia hates her two dads, though she hates Lestat much, much more. Louis is the one who ended her mortal life, but Lestat is the one who granted her an immortal one. Maybe she would have forgiven Lestat if he weren't such a jerk. Whenever she wants to know anything—like how she was made, how vampires die, how many vampires there are in the world, and so on—Lestat acts like he knows the answer but won't give it to her. This infuriates Claudia and leads her to plot his death.

Despite Claudia's best efforts, Lestat gets to her first. He seems to subscribe to the I brought you into this world, so I can take you out method of parenting, and he takes her out in an act of revenge. She tries to kill him—twice—and he returns the favor, introducing her to the sun.

Empty Nest Syndrome

We said that Claudia hates Louis, too, but her attitude toward Louis treads a fine line between love and hate. Louis cares for her. He "thought only of protecting her from Lestat" (1.418). And Claudia cares for Louis in turn. Still, she cannot deny her vampire nature. She's a fierce killer, and she wishes Louis were too. You know how little girls are. They like tea parties and drinking blood, and they just want their dad to drink it with them.

Eventually there comes a time in every girl's life when her father grows up and leaves the nest. This happens to Claudia when Louis chooses Armand over her. Part of her is excited, because she's always yearned for independence. She even once says to Louis, "Did you think I'd be your daughter forever? Are you the father of fools, the fool of fathers?" (3.22). That pesky five-year-old body always gets in the way, though.

Louis grants her a guardian in the form of Madeleine, the only person he has made a vampire. Sadly, Madeleine cannot protect Claudia when Lestat take vengeance: both Madeleine and Claudia are sent to the sun and reduced to ash.

Before her death, Claudia forgives Louis for killing her. Of course, she only says this after he makes Madeleine for her, which makes us question her sincerity somewhat. It seems that Louis questions her sincerity when it comes to all of her actions: "I understand for the first time in my life what [Claudia] feels when she forgives me for being myself whom she says she hates and loves: she feels almost nothing" (3.382). If Louis mourns anything, it's not the loss of Claudia's life… it's the loss of her humanity.