"All this Claudia found wondrous, with the quiet awe of an unspoiled child, and marvelled when Lestat hired a painter to make the walls of her room a magical forest of unicorns and golden birds and laden fruit trees over sparkling streams."
-Interview With The Vampire

Claudia, who had just been turned into a vampire by Lestat and Louis, was a very poor girl. Her mother died of the plague, her father was no where to be found. And Louis had fallen in love with her.

A mere girl of perhaps six years of age, she was quite content with what Lestat and Louis provided her. She didn't need anything really to be happy, but nonetheless, Lestat lavished affections and riches on her. Both Lestat and Louis treated her like a little porcelain doll. At first she enjoyed this. But as years and years went by, she grew older in her mind, but didn't age in her appearance. Lestat and Louis still treated her like a little child . . . like a doll. Claudia grew upset with this, wondering why she couldn't grow up.

A beautiful child with porcelain doll-like features, Claudia has blonde hair and deep blue eyes. She's dressed in silk and pearls and very beautiful dresses. One thing that gives away her true age (65) is that she walks slightly too "dominant" and too upright for a six-year-old.

A woman forever trapped in a child’s body.

As we all know, the movie is derived off the Anne Rice book. I enjoyed the movie greatly, and I think Kirsten Dunst did an excellent job portraying Claudia. Magnificent and flawless as Claudia, shocking in her soft, perfectly paced shifts between adulthood and childish innocence, Kirsten did an excellent job. The above quote from the book is when Claudia is still a child. Still a very simple girl, happy with life. But soon enough, she is filled with malice and begins to hate Lestat, as it had been he who had forever bound her to the body of a child.

What I liked about this quote in the book, is the portrayal of children, and their views. Children are awed with the smaller things in life. They are happy . . . content. A bird in flight, paint on a wall, the sway of wind in the trees is wondrous to a child. And all humans turned into vampires, no matter their age, are like children again. For everything is new again. You see the world in a different light.

Ah, to be a child again. To be content. To be happy with the smaller things in life. But why is it that adults feel that they cannot take the time to wonder and enjoy the smaller finer things of life? Why is it that they cannot stop to examine a flower, or collect pretty seashells? Is there some unwritten rule stating that adults cannot do this? No.

I encourage anyone to take the time to enjoy the smaller things in life every once in a while. So often everyone is caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, the stresses and worries of what's going on in our world, adult or not that we never embrace our inner child. Why must we loose that inner child? Why must we loose the starry eyed wonder, the excitement, the thrill?

I make a vow now to at least once a week stop my 'un-child like activities' and do something fun, something a child would be thrilled with. I would encourage everyone to do the same. Bring simplicity back into your life . . . if only for a moment.

L

Written on 13 October 2005 at 9:10 pm