“It Is Not the Dead You Should Fear”: Modern Vampiric Identities in Kat Dunn’s Hungerstone

The figure of the vampire, popularised by Bram Stocker but formerly existent in the folklore of different cultures around the world, has been the protagonist of many multimedia works, and so, its identity has undergone changes through time. Consequently, in Kat Dunn’s Hungerstone, a modern retelling of Carmilla, the identity of the female vampire differs from the one portrayed by Sheridan Le Fanu in the original work from the XIX century, alongside the meaning of vampirism as a metaphor. This work aims to demonstrate how the representation of the female vampire is subverted in the novel Hungerstone by comparing it to Le Fanu’s Carmilla, by means of Feminist and Queer approaches. The results show that retelling Carmilla’s vampirism is understood as an incentive for the protagonist's hunger for more than a miserable life, a way of escape from a “blood consuming” husband that resembles the traditional vampire myth more than Carmilla herself does. Thus, establishing two different vampiric identities that explore different ways in which vampirism can be used as a symbol.