Beyond the gender binary: An analysis of the representation of androgyny in Wang Xifeng

Abstract

Academic inquiry into the portrayal of Hongloumeng characters has been conducted by literary scholars and critics for decades. Among the numerous characters in this Chinese classic, Wang Xifeng (王熙鳳), one of the well-known Twelve Beauties of Jinling, has been one of the most-discussed objects in previous studies. Compared to the monolithic amount of research that delves into the sculpture of the character formed through personality traits or the storyline associated with such a character's fate from pure literary perspectives, a relatively little academic discussion has covered critical gender perspectives of this prominent character. This chapter will make such an attempt by investigating the characterization of Wang Xifeng from the perspective of androgyny, a fundamentally important concept in gender studies. This chapter will first review major scholarly discussions on androgyny related to feminist literary criticism, then introduce Bem's theory on androgyny as the framework of this study, and finally examine the representation of androgyny in Wang Xifeng by studying the character's gender role behavior, personality traits and managerial competence displayed in the story.