Laurell K. Hamilton Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Laurell K. Hamilton - Essay ExampleIn all of Hamiltons novels hotshot can come across a bod of contemporary themes that goes well in tune with the contemporary American socio-cultural milieu. For instance, her works deal with such contemporary themes in American literature such as sexual urge, sex, identity, oppression, and morality. The paper seeks to explore what makes Hamilton a contemporary author who deals with contemporary themes in literature and in doing so the paper focuses on the dominant themes in her writings. The themes of g block offer and sex ar dominant in Hamiltons writings and it is these themes that attribute her works a contemporary nature even though her plot and characters beginning out of mere fantasy. One can clearly see that her women protagonists challenge the very notion of the stereotyped gender and sex roles played by women in a male dominated society. Nick Mamatas is right when the author remarks that Hamilton accomplished something quite impossib le by creating a new subgenre, urban fantasy-adventure with a young-bearing(prenominal) lead, and build a new audience for it (Hamilton & Wilson, 2009, p. 5). In fact, Hamilton created her young-bearing(prenominal) protagonists in such a way that the female readers could easily identify with the central characters and her female protagonists undertake such actions which females thought to be impossible in the real life. In all her novels and short stories, one can find that the male characters are forced to follow the female lead. For instance, in the Anita Blake series, Anita Blake assumes a tough personality who always triumphs over men. Thus, one can see that Hamilton challenged the conventions of a standard fantasy novel where the heroine always played a submissive role to the heroes. Her heroines do not end up their lives in the heros bed for domestic-sexual bliss. Usually, in popular fiction, even if a woman triumphed over a man intellectually, economically, or rhetorically in a scene or two, by the end of the book the female lead would be humbled and ready to submit to the male lead and Hamilton changed that (Hamilton & Wilson, 2009, p. 9). Thus, it can be concluded that Hamiltons writings provide the changing gender roles played by women and such a theme is very much contemporary in literature. No doubt, the themes related to literature subtract the real or imaginary life of man and a theme in literature is said to be contemporary when it represents the existing socio-cultural milieu. The readers feel that the writer is giving vent to their own emotions, feelings, grievances, frustrations and experiences. A close reading of Hamilton convinces one that her treatment of sex and female sexuality was very much bold and unconventional. When one finds Anita Blake at the beginning of Hamiltons series, she is a 27 year old celibate Christian who keeps strict moral codes in her life. However, one finds her supporting prenuptial sex and engaging in extra ma rital relations as the story progresses. However, Hamilton gives Anita a reason to go hog wild with sex, and in doing so she unbridged the gap between humans and monsters. In Cerulean Sin, Anita herself states, one of my favourite things about hanging out with the monsters is the healing. Straight humans seemed to get killed on me a lot. Monsters survived. Lets hear it for the monsters. It is thus evident that Hamiltons treatment of the theme of sex and sexuality assumes contemporary relevance. Nathan Brazil, reviewing Laurel K. Hamiilton