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 who is willing to battle against convention and society to preserve her convictions
Kingston is on a search to find her identity. She tries to find herself as a Chinese in American society. There is a struggle within herself to distinguish that which is Chinese from that which is American. Kingston tries to find herself and her voice in America. She says, "We American-Chinese had to whisper to make ourselves American feminine. Apparently we whispered even more softly than the Americans."(Kingston 714) Kingston tries to make herself fit into American society by "...invent(ing) an American-feminine speaking personality."(Kingston 714) She writes that she needed an "American-feminine" personality to have dates. A deep rooted insecurity can be sensed in Kingston. She does not believe in her own attractiveness. She feels a need to become another person to be accepted in American society. She's incapable of attracting dates but her invented personality can.
Though Kingston is on a quest to find herself there seems to be a conflict in her mind between the person she really is and the person she wants to become. In "Silence" she talks of her desire to have an American sounding voice. In the essay "Woman Warrior" Kingston dreams of herself as a female avenger, taking revenge on the society that denied her family and herself happiness. She sees herself as a strong, capable, ruthless warrior--- almost a man. Kingston is unhappy with the person that she is. She seems to be unable to meet her expectations of herself. The writer struggles to deal with the person she is and the person she aspires to be.
Though she tries to find herself , she cannot find her place, and her voice in America. Kingston searches for her voice in America yet she becomes almost mute. She writes that as a child she used to cover her pictures in black.
Cone is a book that takes an in depth look at Martin Luther King Jr.
In Maxine Hong Kingston story, “No Name Woman,” the author told a story of her aunt who was punished for committing adultery and died in order to express her thought and spirit of revolt of the patriarchal oppression in the old Chinese society. My essay will analyze the rhetoric and the technique of using different narrators to represent the article and expound the significance of using those methods in the article.
Imagination is a quality that everyone has, but only some are capable of using. Maxine Hong Kingston wrote “No Name Woman” using a great deal of her imagination. She uses this imagination to give a story to a person whose name has been forgotten. A person whose entire life was erased from the family’s history. Her story was not written to amuse or entertain, but rather to share her aunts’ story, a story that no one else would ever share. The use of imagination in Kingston’s creative nonfiction is the foundation of the story. It fills the gaps of reality while creating a perfect path to show respect to Kingston’s aunt, and simultaneously explains her disagreement with the women in her culture.
Jamaica Kincaid wrote “A Small Place” after she visited Antigua after twenty years. When she visited her hometown, she was disappointed. Her tone in the book is tense consist angry and sad. As she said “I wrote with a kind of recklessness in that book. I didn’t know what I would say ahead of time. Once I wrote it, I felt much radicalized
The diary form implies that life on Mango Street will be memories to the protagonist after her assimilation to the American culture. However, Kingston wants Asian Americans to prove that they are a group who also has voice, rather than try to meet the whites’ standard of being
...racter who has great skill and ability and who attains respect and honor, in reality, she acts hesitantly and comes to the realization that all her skill and ability renders itself as completely useless as she has no value to her parents as a woman. In concluding "White Tigers," Kingston claims, "The swordswoman and I are not so dissimilar. May my people understand the resemblance soon so that I can return to them" (53). Kingston essentially asserts that the woman warrior and she carry the same heart, the same values, the same aspirations. However, the swordswoman has the ability to carry out these dreams whereas Kingston's only achieves such aspirations in her fantasy of the warrior. She hopes, though, that someday soon her "people" will realize the value of woman so that she too can become a female avenger, strong and admirable, standing up for her beliefs.
...in her essay “No Name Woman”. The Chinese tradition of story telling is kept by Kingston in her books. Becoming Americanized allowed these women the freedom to show their rebellious side and make their own choices. Rebelling against the ideals of their culture but at the same time preserving some of the heritage they grew up with. Both woman overcame many obstacles and broke free of old cultural ways which allowed them an identity in a new culture. But most importantly they were able to find identity while preserving cultural heritage.
“On 2 August 1934, President Hindenburg died. Within an hour of his death Hitler announced that the offices of chancellor and president were to be combined and that he was the new head of state. Hitler’s adolescent dream of becoming Fuhrer of the German people had been realized” President Hindenburg’s death marked the official end of the Weimar Republic, a democratic ‘experiment’ that had lasted since 1918. The causes of the dissolution of the Republic are wide ranging and numerous, as was explained in the articles of both Richard Bessel, and John McKenzie. The two author’s agree on the sequence of events which led to the dissolution of the Republic, however, they disagree on what exactly caused the transition from Weimar to the Third Reich. The author’s disagreement stem from a differing view of the fundamental cause, political structure versus political leadership.
Humans can never know for the certain why the universe was created or what caused it but, we can still create arguments and theories to best explain what might have created the universe. The cosmological argument is another idea to prove the existence of god. Many philosophers debate wheatear the cosmological argument is valid. The cosmological argument starts off quite simply: whatever exists must come from something else. Nothing is the source of its own existences, nothing is self-creating []. The cosmological argument states at some point, the cause and effect sequence must have a beginning. This unexpected phenomenal being is god. According to the argument, god is the initial start of the universe as we know it. Though nothing is self-creating cosmological believers say god is the only being the is self –created. Aquinas, an Italian philosopher, defended the argument and developed the five philosophical proofs for the existence of god knows as, the “Five Ways”.[]. In each “way” he describes his proof how god fills in the blanks of the unexplainable. The first way simply states that, things in motion must be put in motion by something. The second was is efficient because, nothing brings its self into existence. The third is, possibility and necessity [!]. Aqunhias’ has two more ‘ways’ but for the purpose of this essay I won’t be focusing on them heavily. These ways have started philosophers to debate and question his arguments ultimately made the cosmological argument debatable. The cosmological argument is however not a valid argument in explaining the existence of god because the conclusions do not logically follow the premises.
The Collapse of Weimar and the Rise of Hitler In 1919, a defeated Germany was forced to abandon government under the Kaiser, who had fled to Belgium and adopt the Weimar, a democratic but flawed system. Soon after Hitler and the Nazi Party appeared, and years later the Weimar Republic fell. What accounted for the fall of the Weimar? My essay will prove that there was not a single reason,
...allowed to reach her American Dream without being frowned upon by others. Materialism, and the fears of judgment, are restrictions for these characters that keep them from reaching their true happiness and American Dreams.
The first time Kingston had to speak English in kindergarten was the moment silence infiltrated her world. Simple dialogue such as “hello” or asking for directions was hell for her because people usually couldn’t hear her the first time she asked, and her voice became weaker every time she tried to repeat the question (422). No matter what, speaking English just shattered her self-esteem.
“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 strengths to establish realities”(5). In the book “The Woman Warrior,” Maxine Kingston is most interested in finding out about Chinese culture and history and relating them to her emerging American sense of self. One of the main ways she does so is listening to her mother’s talk-stories about the family’s Chinese past and applying them to her life.
the first cause. He did not have to be caused as he was always there.
The Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic was created in Germany in 1918 as a result of widespread socialist unrest. A liberal constitution was drawn up in 1919. There was extensive instability in Germany around this time. The Weimar government had trouble pleasing right and left wing parties because, at this time, Germany was very polarised politically. Hitler dissolved the republic in 1933.