This study focuses on specifically Romanian social structures and literary representations and examines the issues of gender as the social organization of sex, of obligatory heterosexuality as an imperative of societal systems, and of the constraint of female sexuality. Romanian fiction is revealed to be a mirror image of the stereotypical picture of the western canon, marked by confrontation and repression. The volume focuses on four representative short stories by representative Romanian writers: Ioan Slavici, Ioan Luca Caragiale, Mikhail Sadoveanu, and Liviu Rebreanu.