The Woman Warrior Analysis

In The Woman Warrior, Kingston gradually finds her own personality and seek its own identity by examining these talk-stories. These stories often contain the values and traditions of society throughout many generations in China. The book begins with silence where Kingston’s mother says “You must not tell anyone” about the stories of her aunt. Kingston is illustrating the concept of the inner circle within the Chinese culture. They fear of negative consequences because these talk-stories that Kingston is about to uncover is shameful and an unpleasant history of their family. In Chinese culture, the idea of family is very important and all actions of the family members will affect the entire group. In the stories, the aunt betrayed her husband

Kingston showed his rebellious and feminine side because she decided to stand up against her mother’s words at the very beginning of the book for her aunt. Also, she is differentiating herself from her own culture by publishing this disturbing secret that continues to bother many women today. However, she is aware of the risks involved in separating from her own Chinese community. As a first generation Chinese-American woman, she grew up believing in American Ideal such as freedom of speech and that "we [girls] failed if we grew up to be but wives or slaves" (Woman Warrior 18). At the same time, she remained her Chinese culture by talking about traditional myth such as Fa Mu Lan which contains subversive messages. For example, in the chapter of White Tigers, the legend of the Chinese woman warrior Fa Mu Lan is a constant reminder to young Kingston that women can overcome the limitation set by men. Kingston even imagined herself to be like Fa Mu Lan, who saves her family and the whole community. She even says that “the villagers would make a legend about my perfect filiality” (Hong Kingston