Louis de Pointe du Lac
Encyclopedia
Louis de Pointe du Lac is a fictional character
in Anne Rice
's The Vampire Chronicles
series. He began his life as a mortal man, and later became a vampire
. He is the protagonist
and antihero of Interview with the Vampire
, the first book of The Vampire Chronicles. He also features in The Vampire Lestat
, The Queen of the Damned
, The Tale of the Body Thief
, Memnoch The Devil
all written by Lestat
and The Vampire Armand
and Merrick
by David Talbot.
on October 4, 1766, to a Roman Catholic family who emigrated to North America
when he was very young. His mother, sister and brother, Paul, lived just outside New Orleans on one of their two indigo plantations, named Pointe du Lac after the family. This was the place where Louis' brother died, after a terrible quarrel with Louis. Louis had always thought that he was to blame and never got over the guilt of his brother's death. He became self-destructive, cynical and desperate, and longed for the release of death, but lacked the courage to commit suicide
. He took to frequenting taverns and other places of ill repute. He got into fights and duels in order that someone might make the decision for him and kill him to end his misery.
, who fell "fatally in love" with the tragic Creole planter, appeared to him as an angel
and offered him an alternative to his desperate, meaningless life. Lestat, upon seeing for the first time Louis' "fine black hair" and deep green eyes, and sensing his passion, was completely and immediately seduced not only by Louis's beauty, but also by his tragedy and human heart; "He seduced the tenderness in me." Lestat made Louis into a vampire, his immortal
companion in 1791, and it was Louis with whom he would live, love, and kill for nearly a century to come.
However, Lestat was damaged from his own experiences in France
and the Old World. He was not as gentle a tutor or as much of a friend as Louis would have liked, one of the central themes in Interview with the Vampire
. An example of this is an anguished comment recalled by Louis in his memoir, where he muses: "I was thinking how sublime friendship between Lestat and me might have been; how few impediments to it there would have been, and how much to be shared."
While Louis and Lestat were often at odds with one another, they did eventually form an uneasy sort of truce, with Lestat gradually coming to regard his friend as a kind of soulmate
, albeit one who resisted his "teachings" on killing and living life as a vampire
. There was a certain element of sexual attraction
implicit in their relationship, in the books after Interview with the Vampire Lestat refers to Louis as his lover.
Interview with the Vampire details an ersatz familial relationship between Louis, Lestat and a third vampire, Claudia
. Louis, in a moment of weakness, feeds from the six year old orphan, and Lestat contrives to make her into a vampire to, in his own words, "bind Louis to [him]." In saving Louis' life by giving him Claudia to love and look after, he destroyed Claudia by forever condemning her to the form of a six-year-old child.
Louis finally accepted his "family," taking the "maternal" role with Claudia and finding contentment in their family home at Rue Royale. Claudia, however, gradually matured in mind (if not body) and came to hate both of her "parents" for giving her immortality, in her own words, "this hopeless guise, this helpless form". She rebelled against Lestat, attempting to kill him in 1860 and escaped with Louis to the Old World to look for other vampires.
In Paris, the "father" and "daughter" finally found what they were looking for: fifteen vampires who disguised themselves as human mummers at the Théâtre des Vampires
. However, in the eyes of these vampires, Louis and Claudia are criminals. They had both attempted to kill their maker, Lestat, and therefore ought to pay for their crime with their lives. Louis managed to escape death, as Lestat, who appeared suddenly at the Theatre, pleaded for his life. Claudia was not so fortunate.
Louis burned down the Theatre in a rage after Claudia's death and drifted through the world and time with the Theatre's leader, Armand, whom he loved. They separated very late in the 20th century in New Orleans.
In the early 1920s, Louis later claimed to have discovered Lestat in New Orleans, lost in a catatonic state. Louis turned his back on him in pity and disgust. (This may be a fabrication by Louis to lead Daniel to Lestat's haunt, on which Lestat remarks in his memoir, "Louis [...] had all but drawn a map and placed an X on the very spot in New Orleans where I slumbered [...] and what his intentions were, were not clear." Lestat also mentions, in The Tale of the Body Thief
, that Louis "made up" this scene. In The Vampire Lestat
, Lestat does not mention meeting Louis again in New Orleans before he undertook his long sleep.)
Louis and Lestat were reunited at the end of the novel The Vampire Lestat
in 1985 when Lestat was a rock superstar. In the events of The Queen Of The Damned
, Louis and many other vampires came together at Maharet's house in the Sonoma Compound to fight against Akasha
.
Louis was one of the only vampires to refuse the powerful blood offered by Maharet and Lestat, preferring to gain strength with age. However at the end of Merrick
, one of the Vampire Chronicles, Louis had put himself into the sun after making Merrick a vampire. Lestat, David Talbot, and Merrick then gave Louis some of their blood (Lestat and David's containing the power of some of the oldest and most powerful vampires in the world) to save Louis' life. It was noted by David Talbot that with this transfusion of blood Louis may have lost some of his humanity and become more vampiric in nature and had become almost equal to Lestat in power. Whether this was in fact the case was not fully explored; later books did not focus on the character of Louis.
The novel and movie depict an arguable difference in Louis' relationships with Lestat and Armand. In the film, Louis had a rather resentful and bitter attitude towards the enigmatic Lestat, and merely reached a half-hearted understanding with Lestat by the end of the film. Louis had also coldly rejected Armand's offer of companionship due to Armand orchestrating his beloved Claudia's demise.
's 1994 film adaptation
of Interview with the Vampire
, Louis is portrayed by Brad Pitt
.
Louis appeared as a character in the short-lived Broadway
show Lestat: The Musical composed by Elton John
and Bernie Taupin
, and was played by Jim Stanek
.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
in Anne Rice
Anne Rice
Anne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...
's The Vampire Chronicles
The Vampire Chronicles
The Vampire Chronicles is a series of novels by Anne Rice that revolves around the fictional character Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman turned into a vampire in the 18th century....
series. He began his life as a mortal man, and later became a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
. He is the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
and antihero of Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire is a vampire novel by Anne Rice written in 1973 and published in 1976. It was the first novel to feature the enigmatic vampire Lestat, and was followed by several sequels, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles...
, the first book of The Vampire Chronicles. He also features in The Vampire Lestat
The Vampire Lestat
The Vampire Lestat is a novel by Anne Rice, and the second in her Vampire Chronicles, following Interview with the Vampire. Many events in the two books appear to contradict each other...
, The Queen of the Damned
The Queen of the Damned
The Queen of the Damned is the third novel of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series. It follows Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat...
, The Tale of the Body Thief
The Tale of the Body Thief
The Tale of the Body Thief is the fourth novel in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series, following The Queen of the Damned. Published in 1992, it continues the adventures of Lestat, specifically his efforts to regain his lost humanity....
, Memnoch The Devil
Memnoch the Devil
Memnoch the Devil is the fifth novel in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series, following The Tale of the Body Thief. Some of the themes of this novel and in large part the title are re-borrowed from the old Irish gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer.In this story, Lestat is approached by the Devil...
all written by Lestat
Lestat de Lioncourt
Lestat de Lioncourt is a fictional character appearing in several novels by Anne Rice, including The Vampire Lestat. He is a vampire and the main character in the majority of The Vampire Chronicles, narrated in first person.-Publication history:...
and The Vampire Armand
The Vampire Armand
The Vampire Armand is the sixth novel in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series.-Plot summary:With Lestat still in slumber after his adventures in Memnoch the Devil, the vampire coven is united around the "brat prince" , and the vampire David Talbot takes the opportunity to request that Armand...
and Merrick
Merrick (novel)
Merrick is the seventh book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series. This book brings together Rice's vampires and the Mayfair Witches.-Plot summary:...
by David Talbot.
Mortal
Louis de Pointe du Lac was born in FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
on October 4, 1766, to a Roman Catholic family who emigrated to North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
when he was very young. His mother, sister and brother, Paul, lived just outside New Orleans on one of their two indigo plantations, named Pointe du Lac after the family. This was the place where Louis' brother died, after a terrible quarrel with Louis. Louis had always thought that he was to blame and never got over the guilt of his brother's death. He became self-destructive, cynical and desperate, and longed for the release of death, but lacked the courage to commit suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. He took to frequenting taverns and other places of ill repute. He got into fights and duels in order that someone might make the decision for him and kill him to end his misery.
Vampire
It was one of these nights, in a tavern brawl, that he caught the eye of the vampire Lestat de LioncourtLestat de Lioncourt
Lestat de Lioncourt is a fictional character appearing in several novels by Anne Rice, including The Vampire Lestat. He is a vampire and the main character in the majority of The Vampire Chronicles, narrated in first person.-Publication history:...
, who fell "fatally in love" with the tragic Creole planter, appeared to him as an angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
and offered him an alternative to his desperate, meaningless life. Lestat, upon seeing for the first time Louis' "fine black hair" and deep green eyes, and sensing his passion, was completely and immediately seduced not only by Louis's beauty, but also by his tragedy and human heart; "He seduced the tenderness in me." Lestat made Louis into a vampire, his immortal
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
companion in 1791, and it was Louis with whom he would live, love, and kill for nearly a century to come.
However, Lestat was damaged from his own experiences in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and the Old World. He was not as gentle a tutor or as much of a friend as Louis would have liked, one of the central themes in Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire is a vampire novel by Anne Rice written in 1973 and published in 1976. It was the first novel to feature the enigmatic vampire Lestat, and was followed by several sequels, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles...
. An example of this is an anguished comment recalled by Louis in his memoir, where he muses: "I was thinking how sublime friendship between Lestat and me might have been; how few impediments to it there would have been, and how much to be shared."
While Louis and Lestat were often at odds with one another, they did eventually form an uneasy sort of truce, with Lestat gradually coming to regard his friend as a kind of soulmate
Soulmate
A soulmate is believed by some to be the person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity, similarity, love, intimacy, sexuality, spirituality, or compatibility. A related concept is that of the twin flame or twin soul, which is thought to be the ultimate soulmate...
, albeit one who resisted his "teachings" on killing and living life as a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
. There was a certain element of sexual attraction
Sexual attraction
Sexual attractiveness or sex appeal refers to an individual's ability to attract the sexual or erotic interest of another person, and is a factor in sexual selection or mate choice. The attraction can be to the physical or other qualities or traits of a person, or to such qualities in the context...
implicit in their relationship, in the books after Interview with the Vampire Lestat refers to Louis as his lover.
Interview with the Vampire details an ersatz familial relationship between Louis, Lestat and a third vampire, Claudia
Claudia (The Vampire Chronicles)
Claudia is a fictional character in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series. She is one of the main characters in Interview with the Vampire, the first novel in the series...
. Louis, in a moment of weakness, feeds from the six year old orphan, and Lestat contrives to make her into a vampire to, in his own words, "bind Louis to [him]." In saving Louis' life by giving him Claudia to love and look after, he destroyed Claudia by forever condemning her to the form of a six-year-old child.
Louis finally accepted his "family," taking the "maternal" role with Claudia and finding contentment in their family home at Rue Royale. Claudia, however, gradually matured in mind (if not body) and came to hate both of her "parents" for giving her immortality, in her own words, "this hopeless guise, this helpless form". She rebelled against Lestat, attempting to kill him in 1860 and escaped with Louis to the Old World to look for other vampires.
In Paris, the "father" and "daughter" finally found what they were looking for: fifteen vampires who disguised themselves as human mummers at the Théâtre des Vampires
Théâtre des Vampires
Théâtre des Vampires is the home of a Parisian vampire coven from the earlier books in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series, specifically Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat.-Interview with the Vampire:...
. However, in the eyes of these vampires, Louis and Claudia are criminals. They had both attempted to kill their maker, Lestat, and therefore ought to pay for their crime with their lives. Louis managed to escape death, as Lestat, who appeared suddenly at the Theatre, pleaded for his life. Claudia was not so fortunate.
Louis burned down the Theatre in a rage after Claudia's death and drifted through the world and time with the Theatre's leader, Armand, whom he loved. They separated very late in the 20th century in New Orleans.
In the early 1920s, Louis later claimed to have discovered Lestat in New Orleans, lost in a catatonic state. Louis turned his back on him in pity and disgust. (This may be a fabrication by Louis to lead Daniel to Lestat's haunt, on which Lestat remarks in his memoir, "Louis [...] had all but drawn a map and placed an X on the very spot in New Orleans where I slumbered [...] and what his intentions were, were not clear." Lestat also mentions, in The Tale of the Body Thief
The Tale of the Body Thief
The Tale of the Body Thief is the fourth novel in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series, following The Queen of the Damned. Published in 1992, it continues the adventures of Lestat, specifically his efforts to regain his lost humanity....
, that Louis "made up" this scene. In The Vampire Lestat
The Vampire Lestat
The Vampire Lestat is a novel by Anne Rice, and the second in her Vampire Chronicles, following Interview with the Vampire. Many events in the two books appear to contradict each other...
, Lestat does not mention meeting Louis again in New Orleans before he undertook his long sleep.)
Louis and Lestat were reunited at the end of the novel The Vampire Lestat
The Vampire Lestat
The Vampire Lestat is a novel by Anne Rice, and the second in her Vampire Chronicles, following Interview with the Vampire. Many events in the two books appear to contradict each other...
in 1985 when Lestat was a rock superstar. In the events of The Queen Of The Damned
The Queen of the Damned
The Queen of the Damned is the third novel of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles series. It follows Interview with the Vampire and The Vampire Lestat...
, Louis and many other vampires came together at Maharet's house in the Sonoma Compound to fight against Akasha
Those Who Must Be Kept
Those Who Must Be Kept are fictional characters in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles. They are portrayed as the progenitors of all vampires, and are thus regarded as the "King and Queen of the Vampires"....
.
Louis was one of the only vampires to refuse the powerful blood offered by Maharet and Lestat, preferring to gain strength with age. However at the end of Merrick
Merrick (novel)
Merrick is the seventh book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series. This book brings together Rice's vampires and the Mayfair Witches.-Plot summary:...
, one of the Vampire Chronicles, Louis had put himself into the sun after making Merrick a vampire. Lestat, David Talbot, and Merrick then gave Louis some of their blood (Lestat and David's containing the power of some of the oldest and most powerful vampires in the world) to save Louis' life. It was noted by David Talbot that with this transfusion of blood Louis may have lost some of his humanity and become more vampiric in nature and had become almost equal to Lestat in power. Whether this was in fact the case was not fully explored; later books did not focus on the character of Louis.
The novel and movie depict an arguable difference in Louis' relationships with Lestat and Armand. In the film, Louis had a rather resentful and bitter attitude towards the enigmatic Lestat, and merely reached a half-hearted understanding with Lestat by the end of the film. Louis had also coldly rejected Armand's offer of companionship due to Armand orchestrating his beloved Claudia's demise.
Appearances in other media
In Neil JordanNeil Jordan
Neil Patrick Jordan is an Irish filmmaker and novelist. He won an Academy Award for The Crying Game.- Early life :...
's 1994 film adaptation
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles is a 1994 American drama and horror film directed by Neil Jordan, based on the 1976 novel Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice. The film focuses on Lestat and Louis, beginning with Louis' transformation into a vampire by Lestat in 1791...
of Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire is a vampire novel by Anne Rice written in 1973 and published in 1976. It was the first novel to feature the enigmatic vampire Lestat, and was followed by several sequels, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles...
, Louis is portrayed by Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
.
Louis appeared as a character in the short-lived Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
show Lestat: The Musical composed by Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
and Bernie Taupin
Bernie Taupin
Bernard John "Bernie" Taupin is an English lyricist, poet, and singer, best known for his long-term collaboration with Elton John, writing the lyrics for the majority of the star's songs, making his lyrics some of the best known in pop-rock's history.In 1967, Taupin answered an advertisement in...
, and was played by Jim Stanek
Jim Stanek
Jim Stanek is an American musical theatre, film and television actor.-Early life:Stanek was born in Havre de Grace, Maryland and raised in Cranberry Township, Butler County, a suburb of Pittsburgh. He attended the Seneca Valley School District where he performed in such musicals as Grease and...
.
External links
- Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. ISBN 0394498216
- Lestat: The Musical at the Internet Broadway DatabaseInternet Broadway DatabaseThe Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community....
- Official website of Anne Rice