Identity In Maxine Hong Kingston's The Warrior Woman

Our personal identities represent the culmination of our past, the influence of the present that we live in, and what we will be in the future. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, in the short story Double Identity, describes the evolution of her gender and racial identity in her youth and later life. She struggles to balance her female identity within Japanese and American societies, initially within her high school and college years and later during her marriage. Through her experience in school, she seeks harmony between her two identities by conforming to the cultural standards required by the situation at hand. As time passes, she decides that acting according to whichever racial identity she feels suits

Amy Tan’s ,“Mother Tongue” and Maxine Kingston’s essay, “No Name Woman” represent a balance in cultures when obtaining an identity in American culture.  As first generation Chinese-Americans both Tan and Kingston faced many obstacles. Obstacles in language and appearance while balancing two cultures. Overcoming these obstacles that were faced and preserving heritage both women gained an identity as a successful American.

As George R.R. Martin once stated, “Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you” (“Quotes About Identity”, 2017). In the short stories, David Goes to the Reserve, and Compatriots, characters struggle with their sense of identity. Some know who they are, but lack the knowledge of who they want to be; while others do not perceive any identity, but know they can be so much more. To find their true selves, the characters have to confront and overcome the obstacles that hindered them in the past.

Being an author of several praised works, Maxine Hong Kingston has been deemed a noteworthy American writer since her first book debuted. Her unique style and interesting blend of myth and truth in memoir form garnered her international attention and won her several awards. Kingston’s works have put heavy emphasis on her family history and her experiences as a Chinese-American, so it is no surprise that she has been received well by many and misunderstood by others at the same time. A discussion on one of her most popular works, “No Name Woman”, and a look at the different ways Kingston’s works have been interpreted should reveal how literature can have different meanings depending on what one is looking for.

Despite being a very diverse literature genre in terms of influence and inspiration, North American literature encompasses many works that share some very common thematic elements. Though there are several themes shared, one in particular can be found in most any work – the importance of identity. Particularly in some selected pieces yet to be named, identity is a very important element, not only because it is a necessity for a main character in any work of literature, but because these works express ideas about identity as being very individualistic – as opposed to being a mere result of cultural surroundings. Zora Neal Hurtson’s Their

Over the course of your life, you come to struggle with the philosophical idea of personal identity; the thing that makes you, you. Oneself may shape their identity around aspects of their life that they have no control over like race and physical traits, as well as decisions that are made throughout their lives like affiliations and religion. Your personal identity can be seen through your passions and interactions with others. An individual’s search for their identity is something that may occur in everyone’s’ life. In the novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie highlights the theme of how the search for identity is always prevalent, through the conflicted characters of Junior and Mary throughout the novel.

Since her mother's talk-story was one of the major forces of her childhood and since she herself is now talking-story in writing this book, stories, factual and fictional, are an inherent part of Kingston's autobiography. Finding one's voice in order to talk-story, a metaphor for knowing

In “No Name Woman,” the theme of silence starts with the elementary words of the memoir stating you must not tell anyone. This statement is ironic because Kingston is in fact telling everyone, giving voice to Chinese customs and the lives that are foregone. As written in her memoir, she states, “You must not tell anyone,” my mother said, “what I am about to tell you. In China your father had a sister who killed herself. She jumped into the family well. We say that your father has all brothers because it is as if she had never been born.” (Deshazer 308). It is especially notable and ironic that the memoir begins with the phrase “You must not tell anyone.” Her effort in No Name Woman is to write about that which is never said; her unnamed dead aunt, and the outrageous behaviors in her mother’s Chinese village. Kingston was not necessarily silenced direct by a male figure; however, the words said by her mother “You must not tell anyone” is a representation of Kingston father’s authorization voice through her mother’s explanation. Kingston’s effort is also about discovering a voice, as both a Chinese-American

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.

The book, Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston is a memoir about a girl named Kingston and her past experiences and stories that involve myths and beliefs that her mother talks about throughout her life. In Chapter 1, when her mother told Kingston about an aunt she never knew she had, Kingston promised her mother that she “must not tell anyone” what her mother was about to tell her (Kingston 7). Her mother tells her that Kingston’s “father had a sister who killed herself. She jumped into the family well” and they all live as if she has never been born since she was a disgrace to her family (Kingston 7). Kingston writes this memoir as a break through as she struggles to have a voice since she’s been silenced all her life. Chapter 3 talks about

At this point in her autobiography, Kingston remains disoriented about her position in the two enveloping cultures, and Ling suggests this idea by considering the significance of Kingston's two culturally different responses rather than only one- either American or Chinese.

In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston crafts a fictitious memoir of her girlhood among ghosts. The book’s classification as a memoir incited significant debate, and the authenticity of her representation of Chinese American culture was contested by Asian American scholars and authors. The Woman Warrior is ingenuitive in its manipulation of the autobiographical genre. Kingston integrates the value of storytelling in her memoir and relates it to dominant themes about silence, cultural authenticity, and the cultivation of identity. Throughout her work, Kingston reaches a variety of conclusions about the stories her mother told her by writing interpretations of her mother, Brave Orchid’s, “talk-story”. Brave Orchid’s talk-story is a form

Who are you? More importantly, who would you like to be seen as to everyone else? Some may say they want to be an astronaut, or a photographer, or a successful business person. Unfortunately, wanting to be something and actually being something are two very different things according to Western Michigan University professor Ilana Nash. She claims “A woman’s personhood can exist fully only in a society that support it … unless her society shares that view, she will not enjoy real freedom” (Nash 45). Personhood is an idea that is prevalent in every form of storytelling and what better story to analyze with this idea that Eilis O’Neal’s “The False Princess”? This novel literally opens with the protagonist having her identity taken from her. Using Nash’s ideals about what it takes to possess personhood I will explain how Sinda, The False Princess, takes the personhood that was stolen from her, obtains the respect from others, and maintains her place in the new life she is thrust into.

Our autobiographical narratives also support the construction of identity, by using cultural models of self narration as well as drawing on our own experiences, who we associate with, when and where, all have an impact on how we tell our stories (Hewitt, 2007). This serves in understanding how identities are fluid and are always changing from situation to situation, an aspect which anyone from the psychosocial school of thought