Interview With the Vampire

Claudia is frequently compared to a doll. The porcelain dolls in the novel are locked into a static, childlike form. They do not have agency, they cannot grow, and they are playthings for privileged beings. Claudia, like any child, is happy to play with dolls when she is young, but her relationship to dolls changes as the years mount. Dolls become a frequent reminder that she is also locked into a static state. Lestat only exacerbates this frustration for her when he insists on dressing her in the same frilly, beautiful clothes she likes to dress her dolls in. In fact, when they are at odds, he occasionally refers to her as a doll to insult her. When Madeleine makes her a doll with a woman’s body, Claudia smashes it in frustration, since it reminds her of her unchanging nature.

Madeleine is the maker of literal dolls. She deals with her grief in her doll shop by recreating lifelike, inanimate copies of the child she lost. When she treats Claudia as if she were a doll, she sees her as an animated doll who will never age and can replace her daughter. Madeleine’s main reason for becoming a vampire is because Claudia will never abandon her the way her daughter did when she died.