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Maxine Hong Kingston's No Name Woman
"A highly fictive text [whose non-fiction label gives] the appearance of being an actual representation of Asian American experience in the broader public sphere."
(Gloria Chun, "The High Note")
Such a disparaging remark about the misleading nature of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior has been readily refuted, notably by Leilani Nishime, who proposes in her essay "Engendering Genre..." that it is a text that transcends genre confines; it challenges traditional definitions of genre and demands redefinitions. Whatever the case, "No Name Woman" (NNW) is remarkable in the way the reader is given a candid social commentary in the guise of an intriguing tale of scandal and oppression. In a vivid representation of traditional Chinese society, Kingston artfully manipulates perspective, or more aptly character filter (Chatman, Reading Narrative Fiction 130), to reflect the culture of an entire society in the vicissitudes of one family's life.
The opening scene itself suggests the structure of the entire story: we are immediately presented with a tragic story-in-a-story, or framed-narrative (Chatman, 97), of the narrator's adulterous aunt. Somehow, the events viewed in retrospect through the eyes of the narrator's traditional, conservative mother seem skewed and moralistic, rendered with an objective, instructive voice which complements the primary narrator's didactic tones as she takes over the discussion from her mother following the opening tale. A little later on, the filter switches almost seamlessly over to that of the aunt, in a radically different retelling of her tale by the (primary) narrator (14). Such smooth filter-character transitions occur frequently throughout the text...
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...le viewpoints, overlapping timelines and a dominating, though largely implied narrator's (possibly author's) slant work together to present Kingston's unique view of gender roles and their assimilation into Chinese-American culture; a far-reaching yet intimate projection of her history, society and self.
Bibliography:
Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980.
Reading Narrative Fiction. Ed. Seymour Chatman. New York: Macmillan, 1993.
Chun, Gloria. "The High Note of the Barbarian Reed Pipe: Maxine Hong Kingston." Journal of Ethnic Studies 19.3 (Fall 1991): 85-95.
Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs Of A Girlhood Among Ghosts. London: Picador, 1981.
Nishime, LeiLani. "Engendering genre: gender and nationalism in China Men and The Woman Warrior." MELUS20.1 (Spring 95): 67-85.
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.
Prohibition not only failed in its promise to curb the social problem created by alcohol. It actually promoted s...
Chen, Jo-shui. "Empress Wu and Proto-feminist Sentiments in T'ang China." In Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China, edited by Frederick P. Brandauer and Chün-chieh Huang. 77-116. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994.
...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.
Dr. Blocker is with the Department of History with Huron University and the University of Western Ontario. He has written numerous books on the Temperance Movement and Prohibition, along with several books about civil rights. His article was published in 2006 in the “American Journal of Public Health”. Dr. Blocker touches on several of his ideas and thoughts on National Prohibition, but keeps his main focus that the overall plan did work by limiting consumption and creating a better lifestyle for famili...
One of the most famed horse races in the world, fans flock to Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky on the first Saturday in May to watch the most exciting two minutes in sports. The first racecourse was laid out in 1789 in Lexington, Kentucky. 100 years later, in 1875, Churchill Downs became the official home of the Kentucky Derby. The first Kentucky Derby race was run at one and a half miles in front of a 10,000 person crowd. Of the fifteen horses that competed in this race, the first winner was a horse named Aristides (Kentucky Derby History).
The 1920’s was a time of major social change in the United States. The social changes during this period are reflected in the laws and regulations that were implemented. One of the most prominent examples of this was prohibition. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, or the Volsted act as it is also know, was implemented to eliminate the use of alcohol in the United States. In doing this, the advocates of prohibition hoped to also eradicate the social problems associated with alcohol. “It was an attempt to promote Protestant middle-class culture as a means of imposing order on a disorderly world”(Dumenil 226). However, this goal of keeping social order through not consuming alcohol, was not reached during the years of prohibition, or even the years following it. Alcohol use among Americans did decline, but it was not totally eliminated, and some of the social problems were even greater then before prohibition. Therefore prohibition was not successful in its original purpose. To best understand the reasons behind the failure of prohibition, we have to look at the years before, during, and after prohibition. This will give context to the implementation of the 18th Amendment, as well as show the trends of Americans’ alcohol use and the effects of alcohol on American society.
During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, many saw alcohol as a cause of instability among communities. To counteract the effects of alcohol on American society, The Temperance Movement, Prohibition Party and many others sought to enact anti-liquor laws that would prohibit the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol. On January 19, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment had taken effect and a nationwide ban on alcohol was enacted. This was thought of as a solution to the many problems that America had at the time, but it only made matters worse. The American society had been greatly affected by the Eighteenth Amendment in many negative aspects such as increasing crime and violence, worsening the economy, and much more.
Maxine Hong Kingston contributed the Chinese American Literary genre and her story The Women Warrior draw attention to gender and ethnicity, especially how these ideas did influence the lives of women, “I'm not a bad girl, I would scream. I'm not a bad girl. I'm not a bad girl. I might as well have said, I'm not a girl." Most of the story is pretty much like a quest for one truth and authenticity; “Chinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?” Not to mention the first arrivals of Chinese had a difficulty in expressing their silenced neglected voice and thus her story provides an insight for reader to understand the ground of being a first generation Chinese American Woman, moreover, Bharati Mukherjee’s, a Indian born American citizen, A Wife's Story narrates the experiences of newcomers form the south, how hard it is to destroy the stereotypes. For example the narrator wants to write to Steven Spielberg to “tell him that Indians don’t eat monkey brains.” There are also many comparisons of Indian marriage customs, when Panna’s husband visits her in New York City. We learn that the couples have sharing an
Kingston uses the story of her aunt to show the gender roles in China. Women had to take and respect gender roles that they were given. Women roles they had to follow were getting married, obey men, be a mother, and provide food. Women had to get married. Kingston states, “When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband…she would be the first wife, an advantage secure now” (623). This quote shows how women had to get married, which is a role women in China had to follow. Moreover, marriage is a very important step in women lives. The marriage of a couple in the village where Kingston’s aunt lived was very important because any thing an individual would do would affect the village and create social disorder. Men dominated women physically and mentally. In paragraph eighteen, “they both gav...
The patriarchal repression of Chinese women is illustrated by Kingston's story of No Name Woman, whose adulterous pregnancy is punished when the villagers raid the family home. Cast out by her humiliated family, she births the baby and then drowns herself and her child. Her family exile her from memory by acting as if "she had never been born" (3) -- indeed, when the narrator's mother tells the story, she prefaces it with a strict injunction to secrecy so as not to upset the narrator's father, who "denies her" (3). By denying No Name Woman a name and place in history, leaving her "forever hungry," (16) the patriarchy exerts the ultimate repression in its attempt to banish the transgressor from history. Yet her ghost continues to exist in a liminal space, remaining on the fringes of memory as a cautionary tale passed down by women, but is denied full existence by the men who "do not want to hear her name" (15).
Authors who write of other times and places help us to better understand our own lives. Discuss A Clockwork Orange in terms of that statement.
Kingston’s mother takes many different approaches to reach out to her daughter and explain how important it is to remain abstinent. First, she tells the story of the “No Name Woman”, who is Maxine’s forgotten aunt, “’ Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her can happen to you. Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born”’ (5), said Maxine’s mother. Kingston’s aunt was murdered for being involved in this situation. The shame of what Kingston’s aunt brought to the family led them to forget about her. This particular talk-story is a cautionary tale to deter Kingston from having premarital sex and to instill in her fear of death and humiliation if she violates the lesson her mother explained to her. Kingston is able to get pregnant but with the lecture her mother advises her with keeps her obedient. Brave Orchid tells her this story to open her eyes to the ways of Chinese culture. The entire family is affected by one’s actions. She says, “‘Don’t humiliate us’” (5) because the whole village knew about the pregnant aunt and ravaged the family’s land and home because of it. Maxine tries asking her mother in-depth questions about this situation, but her m...
The prohibition of liquor began when the use of alcoholic beverages rose after the American Revolution. In order to stop this many “societies” were organized to support the movement which attempted to convince people to avoid becoming intoxicated. At first these organizations pushed for moderation but after a while of that failing to make a difference they switched their focus to prohibiting the consuming of alcohol completely. They were able to get this in action by blaming alcohol for many of society’s issues. By 1916, almost half of the United States had laws that prohibited alcohol. In 1919 the 18th Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited the sale and manufacturing of liquor, was ratified. This Amendment was put into action across the nation January 16, 1920. This was followed by The Volstead Act (passed on October 28, 1919) clarifying the law. The Volstead Act stated that “beer, wine or other intoxicating malt or vinous liquors”. Owning any of these items was illegal and would result in fines and possible jail time.