Introduction

Part I: Agency, Modernity, and Narrative

1. Moral Agency and Narrative in Storytelling

Part II: The Wages of Freedom in Modern Chinese Fiction

2. Predicaments of Modernity in Late-Qing Novels: 1895-1911

3. The Prison of Self-Consciousness in May Fourth Fiction

4. Social Fiction: Must Context Entail Determinism?

Part III: Moral Responsibility in Fiction from the People's Republic

5. Moral Decision in Mao-Era Fiction

6. Historical Trauma and Humanism in Post-Mao Realism

7. Defiance and Fatalism in Roots-Seeking and Avant-Garde Fiction

8. Self-Ownership and Capitalist Values in 1990s Chinese Fiction

Epilogue: The Heart of Time

Reference Matter

Bibliography

Index

Sabina Knight is Associate Professor of Chinese at Smith College.