Maxine Hong Kingston, Chinese-American author of her first book The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, opens with the first chapter “No Name Woman” where she writes about her struggle to distinguish her cultural identity through an impartial analysis of her deceased aunt’s denied existence. Grew up in American culture, Kingston analyzes the possible reasons behind her disavowed aunt’s dishonorable pregnancy, and her village’s subsequent raid upon her household. Kingston explains how
The Joy Luck Club and The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club describes the lives of first and second generation Chinese families, particularly mothers and daughters. Surprisingly The Joy Luck Club and, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts are very similar. They both talk of mothers and daughters in these books and try to find themselves culturally. Among the barriers that must be overcome are those of language, beliefs and customs
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: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts records Kingston’s struggle for self- expression. It is journey of a mute school girl who smeared paper with opaque black paint, the incommunicative adolescent who could not voice her sorrow to her mother, the inarticulate young adult who could only peep in protest to her racist employers eventually she becomes the adult artist who “talk story” in a “high and clear” voice. From the very beginning she was told to be silent especially in case of
American and Chinese culture have a different perspective of what ghost really are. The word ghost has many different meanings in The Woman Warrior. As Maxine was growing up apart from her family’s culture but in a different culture, she knows she is alone. Americans have many different customs than the Chinese do. The ghost change depending on everyone’s point of view. Her mother, Brave Orchid, would describe these different people as ghost, because they weren’t of her culture. The only important people
characters. The guttural aches the heroines in both passages faced, endured and overcame are not unlike those I have experienced as a child and a young woman. I too have lost love, had love unrequited, and have been pregnant bringing disgrace upon my family of great traditions. After reading Children of the Sea and the first chapter of The Woman Warrior, I walked away with an acute awareness of the injustices pressed upon women within the Chinese and Haitian cultures. For me, reading these passages
fictitious nature of ghosts. It displays that the meaning of the word “ghost” is equivocal. In supplementary words, the word “ghost” is multivalued, that way that ghosts can purpose in extra than one way. The word “ghost” originates from the Aged English word “gast,” and its synonyms are “soul, spirit [good or bad spirit], existence, breath,” and “demon” (etymonline.com). In the book, The Woman Warrior, that is, ironically, subtitled as Memoirs of a Girlhood Amid Ghosts, the author, Maxine Hong
honor is my life; both grow in one; take honor from me, and my life is done.” The idea is touched upon in both the book Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston as well as Disney’s Mulan were family honor is more important than anything else. Mulan was directed by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, and produced by Walt Disney Pictures. The film Mulan retold the story of a woman warrior who took her father’s place in battle and became a savior of China.The movie uses many elements from the original story
Maxine Hong Kingston wrote The Woman Warrior as a collection of stories from her childhood. She is a child of Chinese immigrants who grew up in America, and battled between the culture she was living in and the one Chinese culture her mother tried to preserve. One aspect of Chinese culture that is different between Maxine and her mother, Brave Orchid, is the distinction between ghosts for each person. Maxine and her mother encounter different types of ghosts, and have thus have different reactions
Impact of Chinese Heritage on Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior "Haunted by the power of images? I do feel that I go into madness and chaos. There's a journey of everything falling apart, even the meaning and the order that I can put on something by the writing." —Maxine Hong Kingston It is true that some dream in color, and some dream in black and white. Some dream in Sonic sounds, and some dream in silence. In Maxine Hong Kingston's literary works, the readers enter a soundless