The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghost

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Introduction

“The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghost” Maxine Hong Kingston is a critically acclaimed memoir published in 1975 that presents her struggles and experiences during girlhood life in America as an immigrant Chinese girl. Finding voice of silenced women is the fundamental theme of “The Woman Warrior.” Through her memoirs, Maxine Hong Kingston gives a special language for the voiceless women to find their own identities. Kingston largely figures out the lives of Chinese American women she evidently knows. She tells the talk-stories of her mom, Brave Orchid, her nameless aunt, No Name Woman, her aunt, Moon Orchid, and the warriors, Fa Mu Lan and Ts’ai Yen. It is a memoir of Kingston’s girlhood and a coming-of-age story. In her memoir, Kingston explores daughter relationship, motherhood, sisterhood, wife relationship, childbearing, child rearing, and patriarchy. “The Woman Warrior” is not a traditional tale, but Kingston’s girlhood memoirs that make her work a collage. Maxine puts forth an unanswered question how a Chinese-American can find the identity when the immigrants hide and change their names (mostly nameless) in America.

Chinese-American Women

“The Woman Warrior” is a story of a Chinese girl’s childhood life and experiences in California and shares family stories and Chinese legends. “The Woman Warrior” is a magnificently written memoir of the author, Maxine Hong Kingston, but is a pungent, truth about the slavish life of Chinese women. From her mother’s talk-stories, she understands that only a brave, wily woman can withstand in the patriarchal Chinese society. Kingston presents the two worlds, one about life in China, and another about life in America. America is the place where her parents emigr...

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...nese immigration was illegal. Kingston presents the emotional and cathartic experience in “The Woman Warrior.” She feels that she be marginalized by the voicelessness of the women in the male-dominated Chinese society. Maxine puts forth an unanswered question how a Chinese-American can find the identity when the immigrants hide and change their names (mostly nameless) in America.

Works Cited

Cheung, King-Kok. Articulate Silences: Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston, Joy Kogawa. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993. Print.

Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts. New York: Knopf, 1976. Print.

Rishoi, Christy. From Girl to Woman: American Women’s Coming-of-age Narratives. Albany: State U of New York, 2003. Print.

Ya-Jie, Zhang. “A Chinese Woman’s Response to Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior.” Melus 13.3/4 (1986): 103. Print.

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