Science, Religion, Nature, and the Supernatural Theme Analysis

Like many other books of its era, Carmilla explores the relationship between science, religion, nature, and the supernatural. The Victorian era was a time in which science and technology were rapidly advancing. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (published 13 years before the publication of Carmilla) had begun to destabilize Christian ideas about the place of God in the universe, and the machinery of the industrial revolution was upending life in Europe for all social classes. This created a pervasive anxiety about the relationship between nature, religion, and the supernatural, an anxiety palpable in other works of the time period, such as Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. While other works responded to the changes of the Victorian era by moving away from the supremacy of God, however, as the characters in Carmilla react to the vampire Carmilla and the illness that her bite induces in Laura, they insist on maintaining their faith in God. From this perspective, then, Carmilla seems to take a conservative position, insisting that God still stands at the center of everything and must be called upon so that good may triumph over evil.

Laura’s father sees himself as both a man of science and of God, since he sees nature and God as being aligned. In his mind, therefore, God is a part of nature rather than a supernatural force. This is clear in his attribution of the illness affecting the young girls in the surrounding villages to “natural causes” and his belief that they are “in God’s hands.” He also uses natural causes to explain Carmilla’s strange nighttime behavior, offering sleepwalking as the “most natural explanation.” Later, after Laura falls ill, he laughs at the doctor who tries to suggest that the true cause of her illness is a vampire. While Laura’s father’s perspective might seem normal and wise to modern readers, the novel portrays his worldview—the idea that God is a part of the scientific world, and therefore the supernatural cannot exist—as naïve at best and dangerous at worst. After all, it is this continued insistence on rational, scientific ideas that almost leads to Laura’s death.

Laura’s father’s worldview is contrasted with Carmilla who, being a vampire, is herself evidence of the supernatural. She hides her true identity by proclaiming a strong belief in science and the natural world, but unlike Laura’s father, she rejects religion and the idea that it’s associated with nature. When Laura’s father tries to reassure them that the illness infecting the neighboring villages is natural and in the hands of God, Carmilla laughs and says, “Creator? Nature!” She separates the idea of a creator from the idea of nature, and insists that the explanation for the sickness is based in nature, not God. She then continues to say that “All things proceed from Nature.” Her rejection of religion can be seen as the result of two things. First, like most vampires, she is harmed by religious activities, a point driven home when she utters a “low convulsive cry of suffering” at the sound of the funeral hymn. In denying God, she attacks an enemy who she feels is trying to hurt her. Second, by insisting that all things proceed from nature, she implicitly suggests that she too is the product of nature. She thus frames herself as being no more evil than any other predator, and her actions become natural rather than supernaturally evil.

However, both of these perspectives are portrayed as dangerous, since conflating nature with the supernatural justifies Carmilla’s evil, and conflating God with nature leaves Laura’s father unable to reckon with the supernatural evil in their midst. Whereas Laura’s father scoffs at the idea of the supernatural, the General scolds him for his stubbornness, arguing that it is foolish to deny the reality of the supernatural. While the General previously shared Laura’s father’s beliefs, once he is confronted with evidence of something “marvelous” (the vampire Carmilla), he comes to accept the existence of the supernatural. Despite this, the General never loses his faith in God. In fact, he seems to become even more closely connected to his faith after his brush with Carmilla, saying that he hopes “by God’s blessing, to accomplish a pious sacrilege” and defeat the vampire. That he does succeed in defeating the vampire seems to confirm his worldview, in which the existence of God is perfectly consistent with both nature and the supernatural.

In the end, the General’s example suggests that the correct way to view the relationship between God and the world is that God is a true higher power—the creator of nature and all within it, including things that can’t be explained by science. This view of the world is what allows the General to even conceive of the possibility of something like vampires (which Laura’s father initially can’t). This view, furthermore, negates Carmilla’s seeming suggestion that her own behavior and existence are simply “natural” and therefore not evil. The book suggests that only by seeing God as the true, ultimate creator can mankind recognize the difference between good and evil, and act on the side of good.