Narrative representations of masculinity. The hard werewolf and the androgynous vampire in "Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter Series"
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.3190Keywords:
Hard masculinity, androgyny, werewolf, vampire, “Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Series”Abstract
Laurell Hamilton in her “Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter Series” portrays a large community of monstrous creatures that populate a violent near-future American landscape. A number of critics have already explored the forms in which Anita, the leading heroine, emerges in the 1990s literary scene as a strong figure who challenges traditional narratives of female subordination and alters predictable romantic entanglements with the male protagonists (Crawford 2014; Veldman-Genz 2011; Siegel 2007; Holland-Toll 2004). Moving beyond this approach that centres on Anita, this paper explores the forms in which the author designs her male companions and lovers. Her choice of lovers suggests that there are multiple desires at play inHamilton’s popular fiction in relation to masculinity in the context of a heterosexual erotica. Following a methodological approach of cultural studies (Saukko 2003), this study seeks to illustrate how conflicting desires, emblemized by her plurality of lovers, represent a literary effect of paradoxical yearnings at play in contemporary white, middle-class American women’s lives.
Downloads
References
Adams, R. and D. Savran. 2002. The Masculinity Studies Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Auerbach, N. 1995. Our Vampires, Ourselves. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Badinter, E. 1992. XY de L’identité masculine. Paris: Odile Jacob. [(1993) XY: La Identidad Maculina. Madrid: Alianza Editorial].
Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
Carabí, A. and J. M. Armengol, eds. 2015. Masculinidades alternativas en el mundo de hoy. Barcelona: Icaria.
Connell, R. W. 1995. Masculinities. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Connell, R. W. and J. W. Messerschmidt. 2005. “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept”. Gender Society 19: 829-859.
Connell, R. W. and J. Wood. 2005. “Globalization and Business Masculinities”. Men and Masculinities 7 (4): 347-364.
Courtenay, W. 2000. “Constructions of masculinity and their influence on men’s well-being: a theory of gender and health”. Social Science & Medicine 50 (10): 1385-1401.
Crawford, J. 2014. The Twilight of the Gothic? Vampire Function and the Rise of the Paranormal Romance 1991-2012. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Duclos, D. 1998. The Werewolf Complex: America’s fascination with violence. Oxford: Berg.
Faludi, S. 1999. Stiffed. The Betrayal of the American Man. New York: Arper Collins. Garber, M. 1992. Vested Interests: Cross Dressing and Cultural Identity. New York: Routledge.
Gibbons, A. 1992. The Transformation of Intimacy. Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Goodlad, L. 2007. “Looking for Something Forever Gone: Gothic Masculinity, Androgyny, and Ethics at the Turn of the Millennium”. Cultural Critique 66 (Spring): 104-126.
Halberstam, J. 1993. “Technologies of Monstrosity: Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’”.
Victorian Studies 36 (3), Victorian Sexualities (Spring): 333-352. Halberstam, J. 1998. Female Masculinity. Duhram: Duke University Press. Hamilton, L. 1993. Guilty Pleasures. New York: Orbit.
Hamilton, L. 1994. The Laughing Corpse. New York: Orbit. Hamilton, L. 1995. The Circle of the Damned. New York: Orbit. Hamilton, L. 1996. The Lunatic Cafe. London: Hachette. Hamilton, L. 1997. The Killing Dance. New York: Orbit.
Hamilton, L. 2001. Narcissus in Chains. New York: Orbit.
Heilbrun, C. 1964. Toward a Recognition of Androgyny. New York: Northon and Company.
Holland-Toll, L. 2004. “Harder than Nails, Harder than Spade: Anita Blake as ‘The Tough Guy’ Detective”. The Journal of American Culture 27 (June): 175-189.
Horlacher, S., ed. 2011. Constructions of Masculinity in British Literature from the Middle Ages to the Present. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kimmel, M. 2013. Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era. New York: Nation Books.
Mamatas, N. 2010. “Giving the Devil Her Due”. Ardeur. 14 Writers on the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter Series. Ed. L. K. Hamilton. Dallas: BenBella. 3-10.
Mirizio, A. 2000. “Del Carneval al Drag: La extraña relación entre masculinidad y trasvestismo”. Nuevas Masculinidades. Eds. M. Segarra and A. Carabí. Barcelona: Icaria. 133-150.
Moretti, F. 1982. “The Dialectic of Fear”. New Left Review 136 (Nov.-Dec): 67-85. Morgan, E. 1987. “The Feminist Novel of Androgynous Fantasy”. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 2 (3): 40-49.
Mukherjea, A. 2011. “My Vampire Boyfriend: Postfeminism, ‘Perfect’ Masculinity, and the Contemporary Appeal of Paranormal Romance”. Studies in Popular Culture 33 (2, Spring): 1-20.
Norwood, R. 1985. Women that love too much. New York: Pocket Books.
Radway, J. 1991. Reading the Romance. Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina.
Rodgers C. 1995. “Elisabeth Badinter and ‘The Second Sex’: An Interview”. Signs 21, 1 (Autumn): 147-162.
Rubin, G. 1975. “The Traffic of Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex”. Toward an Anthropology of Women. Ed. R. R. Reiter. New York: Monthly Review
Press. 157-211. Saukko, P. 2003. Doing Research in Cultural Studies. An Introduction to Classical and New Methodological Approaches. London: Sage.
Siegel, C. 2007. “Female Heterosexual Sadism: The Final Feminist Taboo in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series”. Third Wave Feminism and Television: Jane Puts it in a Box. Ed. M. L. Johnson. London/ New York: Tauris. 56-90.
Thibaut, C. 2010. “Violencia de género y la hipótesis de la violencia anómica”. Historia y Pensamiento en torno al género. Eds. M. Huguet and C. González Marín. Madrid: Dykinson. 135-158.
Veldman-Genz, C. 2011. “Serial Experiments in Popular Culture: The Resignification of Gothic Symbology in Anita Blake Vampire Hunter and the Twilight Series”. Bringing Light to Twilight, Perspectives on a Pop Culture Phenomenon. Ed. G. L. New York: Palgrave. 43-59.
Whitehead, S. 2002. “Masculinity-Illusion or Reality”. Men and Masculinities. Key Themes and New Directions. Ed. S. Whitehead. Malden: Polity Press. 8-44.
Wicke, J. 1992. “Vampiric Typewriting: Dracula and Its Media”. ELH 59 (2, Summer): 467-493.
Woodhill, B. M. and Samuels C. A. 2004. “Desirable and Undesirable Androgyny: a Prescription for the Twenty-First Century”. Journal of Gender Studies 13 (1, March): 15-28.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
The authors retain copyright of articles and authorize Journal of English Studies the first publication. They are free to share, redistribute, and/or reprint the article without obtaining permission from the publisher as long as they give appropriate credit to the editor and the journal.
Self-archiving is allowed too. In fact, it is recommendable to deposit a PDF version of the paper in academic and/or institutional repositories.
It is recommended to include the DOI number.
This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
