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Point Of View In Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior

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Point of View in The Woman Warrior "...Point of view is... an artful treatment of the facts [in a story]...," a treatment with which the author decides who is telling the story, as well as the credibility given to the story (Macauley and Lanning 132). Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior is not a story, but an autobiography of her life as a Chinese-American girl growing up in California. Although it is not a story, Kingston must decide from which point of view she is going to tell her own story. In The Woman Warrior, the author Maxine Hong Kingston writes in various points of view due to her realizing that, if she writes solely in first person, she will write an autobiography much like all others, only focusing on herself; instead, …show more content…

In this autobiography, Kingston becomes the omnipotent author in the chapter entitled "The Western Palace," as she tells the story of her mother, her aunt, and her aunts life after she moves to California from China. In this chapter, Kingston writes the anecdote as if she knows the whole story, "...[borrowing] the vision of a character and [seeing] things from that persons point of view...," as she does many times with her mother's and aunt's feelings in the tale, allowing us to see more into the characteristics of each character (Macauley and Lanning 142). Kingston later notes that she does not retell the anecdote from her personal experience, rather from "...one of [her] sisters [telling] her what [her brother] had told her...," revealing to us that she "...twisted [it] into designs..." that would help fulfill the purpose she has for that chapter: showing the Chinese traditions that her mother sticks to, even after moving to the United States, to show the differences that first and second generation Chinese immigrants have, and to show some characteristics of her mother (Kingston …show more content…

The readers of The Woman Warrior do not see true first person until the last chapter "A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe," where Kingston tells of her school life as a young girl. This chapter, through stories of her "... eighteen months sick in bed with a mysterious illness...," "...[playing] capture the flag in the auditorium...," and tormenting a shy girl who refused to talk, Kingston shows readers her experiences as a young Chinese-American girl going through school, "...[establishing] an intimacy and involvement for the reader...," who begins to see Kingston as a real person, instead of family members or the fictional characters of ancient folklore (Kingston 182, 168: Macauley and Lanning 139). In most chapters in The Woman Warrior, Kingston tells a tale from her childhood, then applies it to her life as a Chinese-American in the first person. In "White Tigers," Kingston tells how "[her] American life has been such a disappointment" compared to the heroic life "... of Fa Mu Lan, the girl who took her father's place in battle" (Kingston 45,20). In "Shaman," she tells of how "...[her] mother has cooked for [her]: raccoons, skunks...snakes, garden snails, turtles...[and] catfish..." and the great variety of food is the reason why her mother was so brave and heroic, but showing obvious disgust as she says "she would live on plastic" (Kingston 90,

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