As a Cultural construct, gender is fictional and imagined, yet its ideological and representational effects on the formation of self and identity are quite real. The fiction behind the fictional, which many accepts as truth, is at the core of what is most intriguing about the problem of gender. Critiquing this narrative, Gender, Discourse, and the Self in Literature unravels the strategies that writers and filmmakers adopt in their (de)construction of the gendered self in three Chinese communities: mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Writing from the vantage points of film, literature, and gender studies, contributors make an innovative marriage to Western gender discourse and the construction and representation of self and identity in contemporary China.
