The Woman Warrior is a compelling novel written by Maxine Hong Kingston. The novel won National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction after receiving a great deal of praise from critics. In her novel, Kingston utilizes various literary elements to reveal the theme. Through the use of conflict, symbolism, and characterization, the message behind the theme becomes prominent to readers. The use of conflict gives readers a vivid screening of the role women played in the Chinese society. The symbols
In the novel The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston uses ghosts to represent a battle between American and Chinese cultures. The two cultures have different views of what a ghost is. The Chinese believe the ghost spirits may be of people dead or alive. Chinese culture recognizes foreigners and unfamiliar people as ghosts because, like American ghosts, they are mysterious creatures of the unknown. Americans view ghosts as spirits of the dead that either help or haunt people. American ghosts may
The theme of “voiceless woman” throughout the book “the woman warrior” is of great importance. Maxine Kingston narrates several stories in which gives clear examples on how woman in her family are diminished and silenced by Chinese culture. The author not only provides a voice for herself but also for other women in her family and in her community that did not had the opportunity to speak out and tell their stories. The author starts the book with the story of her aunt. This story was a well-kept
Maxine Hong Kingston and the Search for identity Maxine Hong Kingston is in search of herself. She tries to find herself as a woman in a man's world, as a Chinese in America, and, as a daughter instead of a son. In all her writings one can see her search for her identity. One can feel her rebellion to convention, her need to break the barriers of society, her desire to make a perfect world where everyone is treated as an equal. But most of all her writings depict her as a strong and proud woman
The essay “No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston, first published in 1975, is about the narrator’s parental aunt who committed suicide after she had given birth to an illegitimate child. She reflects upon her identity as a Chinese-American woman when she remembers the story her mother told her 20 years ago, right after she reached puberty. The mother told the narrator that she had a parental aunt, whose name remains unknown. This aunt lived in a Chinese village and became pregnant, long after her
Throughout the years poverty has played an important role in changing traditions and cultures. Poverty has changed the role of women and their ways of thinking. In “No Name Woman”, Maxine Hong Kingston showed an example of how poverty changed the responsibilities of women in a small village in China. According to the narrator’s mother, the women in this Chinese village, during the twentieth century, were to get married for one night and then all the men leave to America, to work there and send money
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
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston portrays the complicated relationship between her and her mother, while growing up as a Chinese female in an American environment. She was surrounded by expectations and ideals about the inferior role that her culture imposed on women. In an ongoing battle with herself and her heritage, Kingston struggles to escape limitations on women that Chinese culture set. However, she eventually learns to accept both cultures as part of who she is. I was able to related
Maxine Hong Kingston Understanding Her Life through The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior” is novel composed of myths and memoirs that have shaped her life. Her mother’s talk-stories about her no name aunt, her own interpretation of Fa Mu Lan, the stories of ghosts in doom rooms and American culture have been the basis of her learning. She learned morals, truths, and principals that would be the basis of her individuality. Since her mother's talk-story was one of the
The stories Maus and The Woman Warrior that we read this semester seem very different from each other, but I think that they both contain similarities and can be contrasted readily. The Woman Warrior by Maxing Hong Kingston like Maus by Art Spiegelman deals with storytelling and tradition derived from racial issues. These books are not merely based on race though. Culture, identity, language, heritage, history, and discrimination are all components in the compositions of Maus and The Woman Warrior
hardly seems liberating. Edna lives in a phallocentric world where women have no identities apart from their relationships with men. Leslies W. Rabine, in her essay “No Lost Paradise: Social Gender and Symbolic Gender in the Writings of Maxine Hong Kingston,” says that “traditional male narratives” are based “on a linear and circular quest to return to a lost paradise” (Rabine 90), however, female narratives do not have this lost paradise. The world in which Edna lives traps her so that the paradise
In the story The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, sexism is shown as a key factor in the Chinese society, revealed through the trials an innocent woman faces; this story relates to today’s world in that many women today are mistreated on a regular basis simply because of their gender. There were a number of conflicts such as culture clashes, tradition, sexism, insanity, etc. One conflict that was consistent in the story was sexism. Sexism is not only a major conflict in the book, but in the
Christopher Beam focuses on the decline of serial killers since the '80s in his article "Blood Loss". Conversely, Maxine Hong Kingston centers her article "No Name Woman" on the constraints of traditional Chinese values. Despite their differences, however, the articles of both writers illustrate many similarities. The admirable differences in the approaches to morbidity by Beam and Kingston iterate their mutual concern for the well-being of society and their sheer fascination with death. Beam argues that
To best understand Maxine Hong Kingston’s article “Tongue-Tied, one must consider the very definition of the term “tongue-tied. The Oxford dictionary defines tongue-tied as “being speechless or confused in expression, as from shyness, embarrassment or astonishment.”(Dictionary.com) This definition explains the discomfort of the little girl’s feelings throughout this article. Maxine Hong Kingston lived in America, far away from her Chinese culture and traditions. She struggled to find the best
China Men - The Brother in Vietnam In her tale, "The Brother in Vietnam," author Maxine Hong Kingston relates the drastic misinterpretation of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" on the part of the "brother's" students. It is clear to the reader that their disillusioned thoughts and ideas of the world were instilled in their vulnerable minds by their own parents at young ages, an occurrence that still takes place in our society today. In his account of the situation, the brother first clearly makes
the stories with a flavor of their own personal character. In The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston utilizes stories told to her by her mother as a device to introduce readers to some aspect of her life. Kingston's mother pass down to her the wisdom she has acquired from her mistakes throughout her life along with best hopes and wishes. The Woman Warrior is a story about the life of Maxine Hong Kingston. It is easy to see her identity from those memorable occurrences that she mentions throughout
Silence In Maxine Hong Kingston’s autobiographical piece “Silence”, she describes her inability to speak English when she was in grade school. Kindergarten was the birthplace of her silence because she was a Chinese girl attending an American school. She was very embarrassed of her inability, and when moments came up where she had to speak, “self-disgust” filled her day because of that squeaky voice she possessed (422). Kingston notes that she never talked to anyone at school for her first year
Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior discusses her and her mother Brave Orchid's relationship. On the surface, the two of them seem very different however when one looks below the surface they are very similar. An example of how they superficially seem different is the incident at the drug store when Kingston is mortified at what her mother makes her do. Yet, the ways that they act towards others and themselves exemplifies their similarities at a deeper level. Kingston gains many
Maxine Hong Kingston is a Chinese American woman whose first book won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976. Her follow-up China Men won the National Book Award (biography.com, 2016, para. 1). Most of Kingston’s books relate to her life. For instance, is her book ‘The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts’, The Chapter “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe” was about her experience in school and the other chapter was “No Name Woman” which was about her aunt. In Chinese culture everything
The woman warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston is a collection of stories that blends between childhood memories, traditional Chinese stories and fictional stories. Maxine Kingston was born in the United States to Chinese immigrant parents. Growing up as a Chinese American woman, Kingston was exposed to gender roles defined by the traditional Chinese culture and the American culture. Thus, throughout woman warrior, Kingston portrays the conflict between the traditional Chinese gender roles and American