Anne Rice and Sexual Politics: The Early Novels

175 Pages Indexed. As new gift quality book with flawless interior text pages. From the vampires Lestat and Louis to a sexually liberated Sleeping Beauty, novelist Anne Rice has created a host of characters who are notable for their paradoxical combinations of the deviant and the conventional. Exit to Eden, for example, ends with the sado-masochistic protagonists embarking on a traditional monogamous heterosexual relationship, while the vampires often long to exchange their erotic immortality for ordinary mortal lives and loves. This scholarly analysis of the seemingly incompatible elements of the subversive and the socially acceptable in Rice's early work covers her career from the landmark Interview with the Vampire (1976) to Lasher (1993). Each chapter tackles a different aspect of Rice's conflicting portrayals of sexual issues, including homophobia, pedophilia, castration anxiety, and the vast array of gender stereotypes and roles that her novels so often interpret and exploit. This study is appropriate both for readers of Rice's writing and those intrigued by issues of sexual politics and the ways in which a popular author both embraces and repudiates some of the most shocking concepts of sexuality. An index and bibliography are included to aid research. Contents in Seven Chapters: Interrogating the Vampire: Heterotextuality and Queer Reading, Engendering Whiteness: The Politics of Race Gender and Class in The Feast of All Saints, The Purloined Penis: Castration Anxiety in Cry to Heaven, Violation and Sex Education: Beauty's Erotic Odyssey, Exit to Eden: The Body the Spectacle and the Transgressive Space, Prurient Painters and Pedophiles: Negotiating Consent in Belinda, and Rape Fantasies: Constructing a Masculine Prototype among the Mayfair Witches. Plus Conclusion: Gender Horror and Popular Culture By James R. Keller and Gwendolyn Morgan. …