Kingston In The Woman Warrior

In “No Name Woman”, Maxine Kingston’s ancestral line serves as a life lesson, whereas in “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens”, Alice Walker inherits culture and hope. Kingston recounts the first time hearing of her aunt “who killed herself” due to the fact that she was pregnant, and “could not have been pregnant… because her husband had been gone for years”; the mom adds a reminder: “Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you were never born”. Kingston’s aunt disrespected the honor of her family and her village by her lack of faith to her husband, and creating another person dependent on the village for food, which is always scarce. Her ancestry and aunt serve as a lesson to always respect family and their well being, or risk being forgotten

In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston depicts Fa Mulan as an inspirational, incredible, young warrior. The narrator desperately needs to have the strength and power of Fa Mulan. However, the narrator’s family follows the stereotype of the women in the kitchen and taking care of the children while the men work to financially help the family. The narrator also feels like she knows nothing about her ancestors. The narrator’s mother and her sisters, battle against ghosts, insane asylums, and suicide. The nameless aunt that Brave Orchid guilt trips, proves Brave Orchid’s old school lifestyle of the unfair and inequality of women. Brave Orchid infiltrated talk story and her life of receiving a medical degree while trying to auction her daughter

In Henry James’s “novella,” his heroine: Daisy Miller is a young woman who dared to challenge the old guard. Her nature, though rebellious was pure and innocent, and her death was in itself her last rebellion. She died a martyr for a cause in which she believed: the freedom of women. She was the first of a new generation of independent women, women outside of the control of the Mrs. Walkers of the world: women who were free. Alive Daisy was bound by the chains of society, in death she was let loose from her bindings. Her death was not an example of failure, it was the greatest gift she could have given. In life, Daisy was looked at as a woman of ill repute by the socialites who mattered in Europe, but in death, she superseded this role, and became something much more: a symbol of rebellion. In this way Daisy’s death challenged the social order. By loosing her life, she showed just how powerful a woman could be.

A warrior woman is never accepted in a society. Marlow starts to describe the women in Congo, however, they are different from the European women. He starts by saying, “She carried her head high… Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow…” (132). The women in Congo were confident and did not pay close attention to what men had to say. Regardless of what is happening to their people and country they still manage to become courageous and leaders. Then a man nervously whispers to Marlow, “If she had offered to come aboard I really think I would have tried to shoot her” (133). It shows that if a woman were to show her abilities to the world, people will be concerned and will not know what to expect. The book also suggests that women

For centuries, women have had the role of being the perfect and typical house wife; needs to stay home and watch the children, cook for husbands, tend to the laundry and chores around the house. In her short story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid provides a long one sentence short story about a mother giving specific instructions to her daughter but with one question towards the end, with the daughter’s mother telling her daughter if she had done all the instructions to become a so called “perfect” woman, every man would want her. Kincaid’s structuring in “Girl,” captures a demanding and commanding tone. This short story relates to feminist perspectives. The mother expects a great deal from her daughter to have a certain potential and she does not hesitate to let her daughter understand that. As a matter of fact, the story is about two pages long, made into one long sentence - almost the whole time the mother is giving her daughter directions to follow - conveys a message to the reader that the mother demands and expects great potential in her daughter. The daughter is forced to listen and learn from what her mother is telling her to do to become the perfect housewife. Throughout the story, Kincaid uses the symbols of the house and clothing, benna and food to represent the meanings of becoming a young girl to a woman and being treated like one in society. Women are portrayed to appeal to a man to become the ideal woman in society, while men can do anything they please.

In “Girl”, the main character lets the reader to the feeling of injustice. It’s because she believes that being a woman seems to be synonymous with keeping a house clean and the man is the most powerful person in the family. Kincaid suggests that both the girl and her mother are restricted by the rules of femininity. On the other hand, woman and femininity in “The Storm” is different. They seem invested in caring for their families and dreams of the time when they were single and free. One finds pleasure in sexuality and the other reliefs in its absence. Women individuality is underscoring the traditional, domestic position for a

Shirley Jackson’s stories often had a woman as the central character who was in search of a more important life other than the conventional wife and mother. These characters however were often chastised for their refusal to conform to a woman’s traditional way of life. Much like her characters, throughout Shirley Jackson’s life, she also rejected the idea of fitting into society's perception of a woman's role.

Once again, we see a female character dependent on her male counterpart for her well being. Lulu is very much a catalyst for the action in the story. Her suffering forces Mann to act, pushes him to use the stolen boat and ultimately seals his fate. The final archetype of women offered in the collection is the role of women as mothers. In “Long Black Song” Sarah is the primary caregiver and is responsible for looking after the house. Her primary concern is her child when Silas throws her from the house. This idea of women as the caregiver is evident in all of the stories. The mother figure in “Big Boy Leaves Home” frets about her son’s well being as the father makes arrangement to get his son to safety. Aunt Sue in “Bright and Morning Star” takes action to protect her son and his comrades. Throughout the stories we see time and time again that the place of the woman is in the private sphere, the home, while the men are far more assertive in the public setting.

The short story Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, gives us a keen illustration of the relationship between a mother and daughter living in a post-colonial society. Although the Mother’s intention is to pass on helpful advice, we can see where the mother imposes her traditions on her daughter. Also, we can also deduce that the relationship between the two is molded by the expected behavior of women in society. The expected behavior of the girl by society is what subsequently leads the mother to make such forceful demands of her daughter. In this essay, I will focus on the role of women in society, and how tradition affects the relationship between the mother and daughter.

The idea of power through spouse relations during the time was clearly evident and in need of reform. The battle Louise fought was not that of a one women show. Women across the country could resonate with her emotions and struggle. While mostly positive attention was evoked through the story focusing on societies view of women roles in marriage, some negative unintentional thoughts could be represented as well. This is the case in which women could resonate with gaining freedom from struggling marriages through death. Either the death of their spouses or the death of

A member of the Executive Committee of the Vegetarian Society once questioned Gandhi, “Why is it that you never open your lips at a committee meeting? You are a drone” (Cain 189). Though the world today certainly knows of Gandhi, his peers once saw him as a drone as a result of his silence. Cultures linked with silence can conflict with other, more vocal cultures: a prominent example is the silence of Asia in contrast with the openness of America. Maxine Hong Kingston delves into this clash in her 1976 memoir The Woman Warrior, throughout which a young, insecure girl develops a voice of her own, gaining an increased appreciation for her Chinese-American heritage in the process. The world that she lives in values open communication, often

Female characters, who pre dominate in her work, are typically damaged by their experience. Family ties, marriage and love are threats to freedom; those women who attempt to escape are usually thwarted; and even those who gain independence achieve it at great cost. . . .Although she has long maintained an enigmatic silence about herself, the insistence with which Porter returns to the themes of female entrapment and resistance, the damage of sexual inhibition and the failure of love in the lives of women, tempts one to speculate about the personal statement embedded in her work

Of lesser impact, the author also discusses another figure, Eliza Lucas Pinckney who was accomplished to study freely and helped her father grow her business. She was reminded of her “place” as a female, Solomon indicates. Later she was engaged in a speech in which she accepted her husband superiority and recognized

The first motto in ‘Sidste Blade’ is equally suitable for the following two volumes, where Camilla Collett wrote about love, marriage and violence, and about the worth of women compared to men in a work related matter. She turned to Stuart Mill and wrote about the need for women's

The story reveals the gender division and inequality when portraying a woman trying to break free from the norms of her time while slipping into madness to do so. We see her many time talked down to by all the male characters in the story, as well as the conforming females. We see