Who Holds the Power? (Gendered Experiences of Greatness in Shelley Parker-Chan's She Who Became the Sun)

This chapter situates itself alongside two discussions pertaining to historical fiction. First, it draws indirectly on Sarah Waters’ arguments about “queer fictions [making] informed contributions” by setting historical characters free from the grasp of male-oriented history (Waters 1999, 314). Second, it draws on the debate concerned with how the functioning of gender identity is affected by the predominantly masculine-centric power distribution (Connell 2005, 2009; Sjoberg and Via 2010; Rudman and Glick 2008). Drawing from both of these ideas, this chapter presents a new reading of Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun (2021), a historical fantasy reimagination of the Hongwu Emperor’s rise to power. The thesis it substantiates is that, with more experience, Zhu evolves her perception of gender during her journey towards greatness. The analysis relies primarily on Marta Jorba’s idea of cognitive horizon, but also on selected ideas, for instance, by Connell, Peterson, Rudman and Glick, and Sjoberg and Via. Consequently, this chapter presents how, during Zhu’s journey, her view of gender changes with regard to specific concepts such as violence, war, and greatness, shifting from the simple dichotomy of male/female to a more complex fluid one. The chapter closes with a few implications of how cognitive experiences might impact one’s understanding of gender.