In her essay “Genre”, Myra Jehlen analyzes the concept of genre in relation to literature. It explores the notion of sexual identity, more particularly the conceptions of masculinity and femininity. It first expresses two different ways of thinking about the nature of gender: as natural or as cultural. After introducing readers to these two major perspectives, Jehlen discusses the relationship between gender and sex. Ultimately, through her examination of gender ideology, Jehlen represents gender as a performance, which she both highlights and rationalizes through her reading of Huck Finn. By introducing readers to the nature/culture debate of gender, Jehlen supports the Nurture side. She explains that the prevailing view of gender is that it is natural (264). This essentialist view considers that gender is “rooted in biology,” that it is inherent (264). In contrast, there is an alternative perspective (i.e. education) that is growing in popularity. According to this view, gender is not biologically based, but rather a cultural construct that is socially learned (264). In other words, gender is a category and the characteristics assigned to this social category are culturally/socially defined. Speaking in the context of literature, Jehlen states that "characters traditionally assigned to men and women in novels reflect history and culture rather than nature. . . [they] are neither timeless nor transcendent” (264). In other words, conceptualizations of gender in literature are situated in a cultural and historical context; The context from which a literary work emerges shapes the interpretation of genre in that work. Since literature is a form of symbolic culture, it contains culture as much as...... middle of paper... ...think more critically about genre when reading literary texts , so that they also come to find new and non-obvious definitions/conceptualizations of gender. Jehlen doesn’t just challenge conceptualizations of gender. She offers a new perspective on the concept, arguing that gender is a cultural performance. Her close reading of this scene from Huck Finn, examining a range of gender dichotomies (nurture/nature, culture/nature, man/woman, masculine/feminine, etc.) and Huck's evolving identity demonstrate her argument. His argument for genre as performance offers a new conceptualization of the term/concept, and also helps to show that the concept is indeed relevant to texts that do not directly comment on genre (such as Huck Finn). Overall, MyraJehlen's representation of gender adds a new layer to the gender conversation..