As an American Chinese Maxine Hong Kingston tries to find out what

As an American Chinese Maxine Hong Kingston tries to find out what

defines her

The Search for Human Identity

All humans encounter the search for personal identity at some point in

life. As an "American Chinese" Maxine Hong Kingston tries to find out

what defines her. Let them be her mother’s traditional world, her new

American home, or herself as an individual. Undoubtedly, Maxine is

strongly interested in the margins between certainty and falsehood,

remembrance and tradition, honesty and deceit. As she grows up, she

realizes that indeed, part of becoming a young mature woman is

figuring out what makes up her own individual. She also questions who

she really is, and where she belongs in her family. Maxine Hong

Kingston begins her search with the story of an aunt, to whom the

first chapter in No Name Woman talks about. Throughout the story,

Maxine tries to define whether she can see herself as a product of her

family’s history and how their story may define her as an individual.

Maxine is also concerned with exploring how her Chinese culture can

be submissive with her emerging sense of self as an American.

Kingston must learn more about what Chinese cultural history really

is. This is why she listens to her mother’s “talk-stories” about her

family’s enigmatic past.

In the course of The Woman Warrior, Kingston refers to her mother’s

historical tales as “talk stories” from which she learns. “Whenever

she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like

this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strength to establish

realities.” The story her mother tells about Kingston’s aunt is a

cautionary tale, for it is meant to prevent Maxine from engaging in

premarital sex. “Now that you h...

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...he identity

she tries to uncover. When Maxine’s aunt goes against the standards

of acceptable behavior in her community, “the villagers punished her

for acting as if she could have a private life, secret and apart from

them.” This is when Kingston realizes that she has her own private

life, and that no one but Maxine may define who she really is.

Finally, Kingston questions her family’s traditional views to find out

whether they fit her life principles and her own views as an

individual. This serves as an example to prove how Maxine is her own

individual, and how her family’s history is nothing near defining her

own identity as a person. Maxine has a family and feels like part of

it; yet she knows that the standards of being part of her Chinese

family are totally different to what she views as her own standards of

life, which she has decided to live by.