Vampire Lestat Essays - Lestat De Lioncourt, Nicolas De Lenfent

Vampire Lestat This book is about the life of Lestat de Lioncourt, later known as the Vampire Lestat. Lestat is writing The Vampire Lestat to let the other vampires around the world know that he is still around. He has been underground for a couple hundred years, but decides to come to the surface when he hears wonderful music by radio waves. Lestat begins the story with him at twenty-one years old, in the 1700s. He, his horse, and his two mastiff dogs have gone to the surrounding woods to kill wolves that have been terrorizing his town. When he encounters the wolves, there are more than he has expected, and he loses his two dogs that he raised from puppies, his horse, and narrowly escapes with his life. He has killed all eight wolves. When he finally reaches home, bloodied and extremely tired, he is shocked at himself, and stays in his room for days. He missed his dogs, and he got new puppies, but it wasn't the same. He was also shocked that he had killed eight wolves by himself. He felt almost like a murderer. His near-death was also a reason for him staying closed in his room, with only servants coming in and out with food. Then, one evening, his mother, whom he loved dearly, the only one in his family he loved, came and spoke to him. She told him that she was dying. There was a consistent sharp pain in her lungs, and the doctors had told her she wouldn't live more than a year. This deeply troubles Lestat, because other than his mother, he really has no one in the world he can rely on. His father does not respect his choices in life, and is cruel to Lestat, as are Lestat's two brothers. His mother also has a conversation with him, which is highly unusual for her. She tells him she should befriend Nicholas de Lenfent, a boy in the town about the same age as Lestat. After waiting over a week, Lestat finally goes down to see Nicholas at a bar, and they hit it off and become friends immediately. One night, when Nicholas and Lestat were in one of Nicholas's private rooms, drunk as usual, when Lestat says something that scares him terribly. He was telling Nicholas about his mother, as he tells Nicholas everything, and he says, " We're going to die and not even know. We'll never know, and all this meaningless will go on and on and on. And we won't any longer be witnesses to it. We won't have even that little bit of power to give in meaning in our minds. We'll just be gone, dead, dead, dead without ever knowing!" What he means is that when we die, there'll be nothing. He's saying that even after life is over we'll never know what we were here for. Lestat then fully understood what he was saying. "There was no judgment day, no final explanation, no luminous moment in which all terrible moments would be made right, all horrors redeemed. The witches burnt at the stake would never be avenged. No one was ever going to tell us anything!" This thought of the sudden end of everything about him with no answers at all terrified him. He said "Oh!" and he just kept saying it over and over, all night. He was so horrified with this thought. Nicholas assured Lestat that this feeling would pass, but it never did. It always lurked in the back of his mind somewhere. News that Lestat had "lost his religion" reached Lestat's mother. His mother spoke to him, and asked him what was the matter. Lestat told her as much of the truth as he could without scaring her more than she already was about dying. She was already so afraid of dying, and Lestat did not want to cause her more pain. Lestat's mother gave Lestat a few gold coins, the last of her savings, and told Lestat to go away to Paris, which had always been Lestat's dream. When Lestat refused to take her money; refused to leave her, she told him that she wanted to know he was safe in Paris before she died. She also reminded him that there was nothing here but a father and two brothers who don't love him and will never let him fulfill his dream, because his dream was to be an actor, and noble families like Lestat's do not act. Lestat told Nicholas that