Interview With the Vampire

Louis is the main character of the novel. Whether he is the protagonist depends on how the reader chooses to interpret his character arc and the nature of evil. He exemplifies melancholy and loneliness and is the only character tormented by existential questions of morality. It is not long into Louis’s vampire life that he is asking questions such as, “Am I damned? Am I from the devil? Is my very nature that of a devil?” (73). By the time the novel begins, he has been asking himself these questions for nearly 200 years.

Louis does not value his life as a mortal, but after Lestat changes him, he views mortal life with reverence: “It was only when I became a vampire that I respected for the first time all of life” (81). He thinks he is evil, but even at her most frustrated, Claudia cannot agree with him. She says, “Your evil is that you cannot be evil, and I must suffer for it” (261).

The most accurate characterization of Louis comes from himself. Near the end of the novel, he damns himself for his passivity. After Claudia’s death, he thinks, “That passivity in me has been the core of it all, the real evil.