Ghosts In Woman Warrior

Natural or supernatural? “The Demon Lover”, by Elizabeth Bowen, is a short story that tells of the protagonist, Mrs. Drover, and her frightful experience with a ghost. After returning to *her horrifying home in London succeeding World War 2, her guilt and anxiety of breaking her promise to her dead fiancé creates a situation of devilish illusions, leading to a suspenseful ending. It is believed that these experiences could have been either natural, in the thought that these events were made up in her mind, or supernatural due to some force beyond scientific understanding. Arguably, “The Demon Lover” uses the elements of setting and flashbacks to make this a true ghost story.

There are a “set” of rules that every ghost story must retain, throughout the ghost stories we have read there has been similarities within each author’s structure of writing . some aspects that these specific storys must posess are that there must be some sort of death or tragedy, they do this because if the death is unidentified it causes mystery and drama . . There also must be a section in the story when the suspense begins to rise and the fear of the main character grows making them slightly

Throughout many portions of The Woman Warrior, silence becomes a big theme and develops with the many stories told in each chapter. For the narrator, the concept of silence means not having an identity because not speaking means not having a say as a woman. However, as the book moves on, she becomes aware of the several negative factors that are associated with claiming independence and doing things differently in a Chinese community. Furthermore, the idea of silence is also hooked up to cross-cultural problems in Chinese culture such as hiding a person's name to hide their identity. Many individuals go by new names when their lives evolve or change and guard their real names with silence. Overall, the mention of silence refers to the hiding

No closure on his fathers murder, and the thought that his uncle married his mother sickens him, events too close. He started to see the ghost when he thought of it because of his lack of closure. (Quote of the funeral food being used for the wedding)

In the novel The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston uses ghosts to represent a battle between American and Chinese cultures. The two cultures have different views of what a ghost is. The Chinese believe the ghost spirits may be of people dead or alive. Chinese culture recognizes foreigners and unfamiliar people as ghosts because, like American ghosts, they are mysterious creatures of the unknown. Americans view ghosts as spirits of the dead that either help or haunt people. American ghosts may or may not be real. There spirits are there but physical appearance is a mystery.

When people think of normal ghost stories they think of stories told around the campfire. Like a ghost of a one handed axe murder that kills kids that venture out into the woods, or the ghost of a kid who drowned in the lake and seeks vengeance on every camper that comes there. Many people don’t associate ghost stories with tales like Macbeth and Hamlet by Shakespeare. Or other works of literature like the Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Things they Carried by Tim O’Brien. Both tales are great examples of a unconventional ghost story not normally told around the campfire, because of the hidden underlying “ghost”.

The article “Whispers From The Grave” by Katia Bachko, it talks about ghost whisperers or people who talk to ghosts, it also talks about why people are so interested in ghost stories. One example to show that people are interested in ghost stories is they are spooky. The article states “Sarah Winchester starred in terror at Adam Coons, trying to comprehend the chilling words he had just uttered” (Bachko 4). Sarah was the wife to the man who owns the company of the Winchester rifle, this shows how the ghost story is spooky because, it makes the reader spooked of what could come next. If someone didn’t know what going to happen next they would wonder and question what would happen and generally people like stories when they have to guess what

According to Avery Gordon, a ghostly encounter, is a reference or an acknowledgement of some social spectacle or event happening that has taken place. Avery Gordon would use the 9/11 and the most current event of the Paris terror to describe he theories on ghost encounter “the fear of

In the prologue of Ghost Soldiers the exposition is shown. The soldiers are in the Philippines at a prison camp and as they are going about their day someone yells that there is going to be an air raid. This causes chaos and all the POWs to run into the trenches for coverage. As they are being attacked most of the soldiers run away towards the beach and they are now hiding from the Japanese. Now, in the rising action of the opening chapter the rangers are starting to make a travel to save the POWs that were captured by the Japanese. As the 121 rangers are marching through the jungle and the rough terrain towards the camp they come across Japanese soldiers. Which they have to invade and get passed. Once past them the rangers are getting closer

Ghosts - in any form - are far more prominent in Kingston's life than in ours. Perhaps this is because there are fantastic elements to the stories she tells, but it is difficult for we readers to separate fantasy and reality and we confuse the two. In some cases - such as with Brave Orchid's "Sitting Ghost", it never really becomes clear.

At the time the book was written it was the late 19th century, Victorian era; and at the time Victorians were fascinated by ghosts - a perfect reason to write a psychological ghost story.

In theory, ghosts are the remnants of what was once a human being. Someone, who at one time, had substance on this earth. They are everything that we, as living creatures, are- but without the vehicle we call the human body. They exhibit all the mental attributes that you and I have such as thought, conscience, emotions and emotional needs, morals, calculation, ego, personality and everything that makes up the human psyche.

Psychological factors can be seen as the reason people believe in ghost. It could be because their minds have the concept of ghost wired into them because of genetics or because of intuition and the thought of ghost. People could also have psychological tendencies, such as depression and dissociation, which make them think they have seen ghost. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, The main character hamlet is struggling with the belief in ghost. In the beginning of the play Hamlet talks to his father’s ghost. The ghost tells him to take revenge on his death. (act 1, scene 5). After this, Hamlet struggles with weather it was the ghost of his father wanting him to take revenge or a demon trying to trick him into doing evil.

In the Woman Warrior Kingston develops a motif using ghosts in order to illustrate the differences between the Chinese and American cultures. During the novel ghosts are typically represented as the opposing culture and ideas that the Chinese do not understand. After Moon Orchid immigrates to America, her inability to adapt to her new culture slowly takes a toll on her, eventually causing her to go insane. Shortly after she moves in with her sister she starts seeing Mexican ghosts that she thinks are spying on her and plotting to take her life. As time passes and her insanity seems to be increasing she moves out of her sister’s apartment to get one of her own in order to escape the ghosts. Kingston describes Moon Orchid’s struggle as she

The critics from psychanalytic perspective claim that the existence of ghosts is the governess’s hysterical delusion. The ghost is the projection of governess's own sexual hysteria, which resulted from the conflict between native romantic impulses and idealistic innocence required by Victorian society (Renner). The inexperienced governess encounters the "handsome," "bold," young gentleman with "charming ways with women" (James, 4) and she