Silence In Maxine Kingston's The Woman Warrior

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A central theme in The Woman Warrior by Maxine Kingston is silence. As the book progresses and the author opens up more about her past, she cures her silence and finds a way to stand out as a Chinese-American woman in the community. The different stories in the novel focus on the conflict between silence and communication to a person’s loved ones and refer to both emotional and physical struggles. She also uses her own frustration as a restricted Chinese American woman to break through the wall of silence that separates her from not only her loved ones but also from the rest of society. The theme of silence in The Woman Warrior displays the lack of a voice the author feels in asserting independence from her own Chinese community.
The author conveys silence using irony at the start of the book when she mentions “You must not tell anyone.” In reality, Kingston is telling the story to everyone, or in this case, the audience. At the same time, several of the lessons Brave …show more content…

The legend of Fa Mu Lan convinces then narrator that it is possible to overcome societal obstacles. Kingston describes how even at a young age she dreamt of overcoming an insignificant life. Another story, “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe” singles out the process of finding her own voice which Maxine Kingston accomplishes by writing her story as a way of finding her voice. In this chapter of the novel, Kingston focuses on herself and her own search for a voice. In order to assimilate in American society, she finds her voice hidden away from society. The silent girl she bullies as a child is a parallel to herself as Kingston is a voiceless girl. She fears of becoming even more voiceless like this silent girl who she constantly bullies. When the narrator bullies the quiet girl in school, she takes her anger out at the whole

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