How Can We Understand Each Others Language?

“For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection on her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened - then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.”

These expectations increased when she was in the presence of “great power, [her] mother talking story” (20). In one particular situation, the narrator recalls her mother singing about Fa Mu Lan, the woman warrior. Although her mother expected her daughter to become a wife or a slave, the narrator had a different idea; she would “grow up a woman warrior” (20). As a young girl, she said that she “couldn’t tell where the stories left off and the dreams began” (19). This is the case in “White Tigers.” The narrator’s dream-state takes readers into the mind of a girl who attempts to please her mother and entire family by becoming a woman warrior. This is possibly an attempt to subside much of the harsh ridicule she receives from her mother due to cultural differences. Although this is a key factor in her early childhood, she learns to block out these criticisms as she grows older.

But those desires are not strong enough to make her leave the domesticated life that she has chosen for herself. She becomes a storyteller herself as she recounts her own Yellow Woman story and believes that the other Yellow Women had names like she does, but they do not reveal them. The Yellow Woman stories allow the narrator to justify her actions as she considers herself another chapter in the Yellow Woman saga.

If she had known that Tokola was family, she would have hugged him even harder before she left him. He was her granduncle, a living, breathing relative! She went to sleep that night, trying to think back through the years to all the times Tokola had been at their cabin. It seemed that as she was growing up, he was always around.

1. Re-read from page 72 “Confused motions of rebellion stormed in him” to page 74 “Tears rose in his throat and slowly burned their way to his lids.”

A warrior is recognized as sonmeone who battles for his/her beliefs. Even after receiving mortal wounds many times, such a person never leaves the battlefield. However, the inspiring and metaphorical idea of a warrior can certainly extend beyond the actual battlefield, and into the universal battle of living life. A woman must face this world like a warrior. She must endure the pain of a past that oppressed her, the adversity of a present that is only beginning to understand her, and a future that will continuously test her. From the beginning of time, Native American women have been a driving force in their cultures, retaining their immense strength throughout

“They used whatever strength they had left to cry. Why had they let themselves be brought here? Why didn’t they die in their beds? Their words were interspersed with sobs. ”(35)

Now I feel that the thief is getting what he deserves. When they leave the thief standing in the road “the boy” becomes extremely upset, “And They set out along south with the boy crying and looking back at the nude and saltlike creature standing there in the road shivering and hugging himself.” “Oh Papa, he sobbed.”(McCarthy 258). I am now starting to feel the compassion the boy has towards the thief “He was hungry, Papa.” “He’s going to die.”(McCarthy 259). They finally take the thief’s clothes back and pile them in the middle of the road and I am glad of this. Later as they were lying down at camp I believe the man was starting to feel guilty, and he spoke “I wasnt going to kill him, he said.” “But the boy didnt answer.” “They rolled themselves in the blankets and lay there in the dark.” “He could tell the boy was awake and after a while the boy said: but we did kill him.”(McCarthy 260). When “the boy” made this comment I felt deep remorse and disgust in myself for having felt so harshly toward the thief in the beginning. I also felt happiness and relief in this story when “the man” and “the boy” found the underground shelter behind the house in the field, I felt as if I was there with them discovering the grand riches this den held! “Oh my God, he whispered.” “Oh my God.” “What is it

Maxine Kingston in “The Women Warrior” presents a traditional Chinese society that anticipates women not to decide what is best for them all by themselves. Kingston creates a woman who goes beyond this ritual culture constraint and who take up

The theme of “voiceless woman” throughout the book “the woman warrior” is of great importance. Maxine Kingston narrates several stories in which gives clear examples on how woman in her family are diminished and silenced by Chinese culture. The author not only provides a voice for herself but also for other women in her family and in her community that did not had the opportunity to speak out and tell their stories.

All his sons and daughters had children and then those children had babies. Almost 100 years old Chief Sit Still loved his family so much, but his favorite was the youngest. Holding his great granddaughter in his arms right when she was born by his youngest daughters daughter Moon, he named her Harmony. Not letting her out of his sight he blessed the baby girl. Saying “May she bring peace to the people and land one day.”. Harmony was the only girl out of all boys, Moon as her mother was very protective about the things Harmony saw, heard, or said. Her father Siska on the other hand, is Chief of the village, believed that Harmony should grow strong to be an independent woman and learn to take matter into her own hands as a young

Maxine Hong Kingston’s novel The Woman Warrior is a series of narrations, vividly recalling stories she has heard throughout her life. These stories clearly depict the oppression of woman in Chinese society. Even though women in Chinese Society traditionally might be considered subservient to men, Kingston viewed them in a different light. She sees women as being equivalent to men, both strong and courageous.

Heroes, kings and presidents, for so long men are the protagonist of the stories. Across the world and through the centuries, women have always been situated below men. Women were considered the weak sex, they are portrayed as delicate, obedient, naive and passionate. “Never trust in women; nor rely upon their vows” (44). As the wives of the kings on The Arabian Nights, whose passion brought them to cheat on both their husbands. They ended up being executed because they threatened the kings’ power. Or bringing danger into the families, as the wives of Kasim and Ali Baba, who wouldn’t think of the consequences of their actions and would act by the pure instinct of greed and naiveness. Yet, seldomly acknowledged, women have had to step up to fix troubled situations, the few stories told of women of scarce resources who have manage to triumph over the standardized society. This not only shows how women take advantage of the resources at their reach but how their

She’ll stand proud once more, but this time alone; Her spirit will dance, despite her aches. For she will never forget her home, With the crystal-white snow, and sky-blue lakes. The moon will whisper to her that this is her fate,

And I was there, too, hoping to find you and say to you, Come back, come back, there's only one street, one door, we didn't mean it, we didn't know, whatever was wrong will be different. Several times I decided you were dead, even wished you were dead, but then another postcard would come, with another message to ponder. And I've always read them, even when my husband said not to, even if they've driven me to tears or rage or a blankness when I've no longer cared if you were dead or anyone were dead, including myself. I've been faithful, too, you see. I've always looked up where you were in the atlas, and put your postcards in the box. Sixtythree postcards, four hundred—odd lines of scrawl: our life together. Why are you standing there like that? my daughter asks me. I must have been away somewhere, I say. But I'm back. Yes. You see, Mother, I always come back. That's the distance that separates us. But on summer evenings, when the windows are open to the dusk, I sometimes smell cities … wheat fields … oceans—strange smells from far away—all the places you've been to that I never will. I smell them as if they weren't pictures on a postcard, but real, as close as my outstretched hand. And sometimes in the middle of the night, I'll sit bolt upright, my husband instantly awake and frightened, asking, What is it? What is it?