Abstract:
The question of individual identity that has always been of a special interest for humanity, with each new stage of thought development was complicated and modified. In XX century, in particular due to the refinement of the philosophical hermeneutics, an understanding of the discursiveness of this phenomenon has emerged, and today, inscribed in the context of the postmodern era, it is interpreted by research scholars according to such key concepts as openness, multiplicity, fragmentation and relativism The problematization of gender identity which is relevant to this day, has become a natural result of changing of social demands in XX century. Since literature has always been an artistic reflection of the social problems, the analysis of artistic texts seems quite productive in terms of study of trends, phenomena, concepts and attitudes inherent in a particular society. A collection of stories written by Scottish writer Ali Smith's "Free Love and Other Stories" (1995) with which the author established herself in the realm of British literature at the end of the twentieth century will be analyzed in this work. The collection has received such awards as the Scotland on Sunday / Macallan Prize and Saltire The First Book Award and can be interesting in terms of research, because the stories of it provide an opportunity to analyze the process of constructing gender identity. The relevance of the study is due to insufficient study Ali Smith's creative work in Ukrainian literary criticism, and necessity of more detailed study of gender identity building strategies both on text and discourse levels. A study of the interpretation of gender identity in the collection of short stories ”Free Love and Other Stories” by A. Smith is relevant in historical and literary terms: above all, it concerns the understanding of the role of women in the era of postmodernism, in the means of using the techniques of intertext, in the introduction of heroes in the contemporary context. Actuality is also connected with the active development of a new category of literary studies – women’s prose, so it is possible to rethink the typology and poetics of women’s prose in gender, to highlight its main outlook and literary components. At the same time, the issues of gender identity in A. Smith’s collection of short stories ”Free Love and Other Stories” have not been the subject of special scientific research in domestic literary studies. This determines the relevance and relevance of the chosen topic of the thesis.
