Gender Representation and Modern Identity (Interpretation of Narrative Texts in China in the Second Half of the 20th Century)

Author: Wang Yu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: What is "modern identity"? Modern identity refers to the construction of the identity of the modern subject (including the subject of the nation-state and the individual subject), which is undoubtedly one of the most important cultural demands of 20th-century Chinese literature. Meanwhile, "gender expression" refers to the narration and interpretation of the gender symbolic meaning (gender code) of men and women in cultural texts. That is to say, this book focuses on the discourse of gender rather than gender itself. In this book, readers can explore how the cultural symbolic meaning of gender is incorporated into the framework of modern identity by discussing the expression of gender in narrative texts from mainland China in the latter half of the 20th century; in other words, how the gender codes of "male" and "female" enter the field of meaning production of the modern subject in different periods, or how the former becomes the symbolic resource of the latter. The research conducted in this book is not feminist literary criticism but a cultural study of feminism centered on gender (but not the only category). The research object of this book is representative narrative texts from the latter half of the 20th century that have had considerable social impact—both referring to female texts and male texts.