Author Description

This dissertation, "Gender Representation in the Tales of Jin Deshun" by Yan, Cui,, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled Gender Representation in the Tales of Jin Desh im Submitted by CuiYan For the degree of Master of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong In February 2004 Folktales have long been regarded as collective expressions of a community, and consequently have often been studied in terms of their common forms and timeless meanings. I dispute this view, and argue that in order to do full justice to the values and meanings of folktales it is important to take into account the role of the tellers and the specific socio-cultural contexts which shape their relations with their communities. I use as an example the tales of Jin Deshun, a Chinese peasant woman whose life spanned the patriarchal Korea, the Maoist and reform eras of the People's Republic of China. In my discussion of Jin's tales I focus particularly on how Jin represents gender norms, and how her gender identity informs her tales. In Introduction I define the term "folktale" as a particular oral narrative which represents a given folk community's viewpoints. Reasons for conducting research into Jin's tales are discussed, and I argue that her tales stand outside the dominant phallocentric culture, and as such open new perspectives and ways of understanding folktales. In Chapter One I present a historical review of scholarship on Chinese folktales, and then discuss how several influential theories of folk and fairy tales tend to limit themselves to formal elements or general meanings of tales, and h