The Woman Warrior and The Interesting Narrative

The Woman Warrior and The Interesting Narrative

In both The Woman Warrior and The Interesting Narrative, the authors inspect the issue of one’s cultural identity by way of the telling of their own story, and how it has affected them. By telling their stories as persons who have emerged themselves into a new culture, but at the same retained vestiges of the old, Olaudah Equiano and Maxine Kingston are exemplifying a duality in cultural identity, that is often times lost.

Before continuing, though, it is important to clarify the definition of “cultural identity,” at least for this paper. One’s cultural identity is the way one sees oneself in terms of the cultures and societies that they have come from. This perception is influenced by many factors, including the experiences within the cultures, either personal or passed on, the time exposed to the culture, and personal choice. These factors combine to determine how one views one’s own culture. It is important to realize that there is also a societal cultural identity. This different identity, which cannot be fully explored in either The Interesting Narrative or The Woman Warrior, is the way in which a society views itself, and other societies view it. The two narrators are not able to explore this separate identity because they only represent one view within their respective cultures, not the sum, and thus not the cultural identity.

Contributing to this cultural identity has been experiences in both their new and their old cultures. For someone such as Equiano, who was removed from his native culture at an early age without having made a significant personal connection, this makes up a less significant part of their cultural ident...

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...al identity. She tends to defy the stereotypes of her Chinese culture. Also, she makes a connection to it through the experiences of her father and his brothers, who first came to work in the country.

In conclusion, the cultural identity is composed of three main factors: personal choice, experience, and time. One can create a cultural identity based up on what they choose to keep from the main cultures one may come from. This is affected by the experiences that they have in those cultures, and in the duration they have spent in each culture. In The Woman Warrior and The Interesting Narrative, authors Maxine Kingston and Olaudah Equiano exemplify these traits, but come to divergent results. The former has a cultural identity rooted in the past, while the latter creates one, based on personal choice, from the experiences they are actively having.