Quest for Identity in Maxine Hong Kingston's Autobiography, The Woman Warrior

For Kingston, she had become separated from part of her heritage. She struggled in attempting to understand the meaning of this heritage in a world that is different from the older generations. She illustrates this confusion and difficulty in attempting to understand her cultural roots when she says, "Chinese Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese and what is the movies? (Kingston 5)." Kingston wants to tap into this old world her parents and ancestors belong to in order to

Frank Chin has been the most vocal critic of Kingston's who accused her "of reinforcing white fantasies about Chinese Americans" (Chin, 1991) and claimed that writers like Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan and David Henry Hwang who won approval of the American white readers deliberately distorted the image of Chinese American to reinforce stereotypes and cater to the fantasies of American readers about a traditionalist Chinese culture. (Frank Chin, 1991, pp. 3-29)

Having two identities is like mastering the dragon ways. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s 1976 The Woman Warrior, she retells about her autobiography in a fictional way and greatly magnifies the art of storytelling. Maxine introduces with the story about her unknown aunt and then transitioning to her favorite story about a woman warrior, Fa Mu Lan. Then she explores about her mother’s past, sister, and interaction with herself. She truly connects every part of the story and creates an identity for herself. The dragon passage illuminates Maxime’s identity and brings her stories into a whole where one must understand one part to find person’s identity.

In the story “Two Kinds”, author Amy Tan, who is a Chinese-American, describes the conflicts in the relationship of a mother and daughter living in California. The protagonist in this story Jing-mei Woo’s mother is born and raised in China, and immigrates to the United States to escape from the Chinese Civil War. For many years she maintained complete Chinese traditional values, and has been abided by it deliberately. This kind of traditional Chinese culture has also affected her daughter profoundly. However, Jing-mei is born and raised in the United States. Despite she has a Chinese mother; she is unfamiliar and uncomfortable with Chinese

Throughout the novel The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, the past is incorporated into the present through talk-stories combined into each chapter. Kingston uses talk-stories, to examine the intermingling of Chinese myths and lived experiences. These stories influence the life of the narrator as the past is constantly spoken about from the time she is young until the novel ends and she becomes an adult. Kingston incorporates two cultures. She is not a direct recipient of Chinese culture, but she has her own sense of talk-story, that she learns from her mother, which tells the old Chinese stories with a sense of myth, in a new American way. This is a way of weaving two cultures together, bringing the Chinese past into her present American life.

Maxine Hong Kingston's memoir The Woman Warrior, details the many holes in Kingston's life story. As her family traded in China for America, some of Kingston's family history got lost in the transition. She attempts to uncover her family's past through extrapolating talk-stories. In a memoir reliant on reiterated stories, the reader questions the reliability of the information. These talk-stories retold by Kingston may have transformed into something more than they originally were. As Kingston pieces together the truth for herself, the reader sifts through the talk stories to uncover the true happenings of this memoir.

In the excerpt from The Woman Warrior: Memiors of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Kingston gives the story of herself as a child and the experiences that she had with school in America. Her cultural struggles along with her gender differences allowed for herself to become extremely timid during 'American school'. As she looks at the other Chinese girls in her school, she believed that she was to follow suit and speak very little, just as they did. Once they were in Chinese school, things changed drastically.

Cindy and the teacher had a trusted relationship. Having no friends that didn’t speak Chinese motivated Cindy to learn English; it her one year to learn to speak and understand English. However, it wasn’t until 6th grade that Cindy felt that she has mastered the English language. Cindy felt the difference between the two school systems. For example: Hong Kong teachers were a lot stricter then the teachers in the United States. Just like every other kid in a new place Cindy experienced fear and exhaustion. She shared how she felt through her film-strips. The filmstrips helped Cindy overcome her shyness. Just like the others; Cindy felt that the was caught in the middle of the two cultures. Cindy experienced some difficulty with cultural identity because of her dual cultural experience and language (p. 89).

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 “chipe” (tongue clicking) still feels out of sorts. Using my tongue to express disapproval seems so overt in comparison to subtly sighing or rolling my eyes. The excessive animation painted on the faces of those who surround me breeds a culture of counterfeit inclusivity. At least in America I can easily read the emotions and reactions of others rather than the faces they think they must maintain in an effort to respect etiquette. The “pssst” in my ear makes me shiver with the lips of someone else so crisply forming tunnels of air so close to me. Generally, a lack of respect for time of other’s sharply contrasts with the American motto “time is money”. I love Haiti, I love the people, the atmosphere of care and human investment but sometimes, a place exists for solitude--no one should be denied

Kingston begins The Woman Warrior by writing a story which started with her mother insisting that she “must not tell anyone...what I am about to tell you.” (Kingston 3). Kingston’s first written words are a defiance of this silencing. Silence is a motif that permeates the entirety of The Woman Warrior; Kingston

Kingston, or the narrator, happens to be the most imaginative, curious, and conflicted character in The Woman Warrior. She may be the only character who knows what she wants and needs in life in order to be satisfied with her own life. Everyone else in her family keeps the never ending tradition going to not disappoint their elders. They all have misery that would have been resolved if they had done what made them happy. Temptation indulges in the urges that are not necessarily meant to be addressed. Kingston indulges in her mother’s disapproval of how to live her life in order to show that happiness can empower the traditions and stereotypes of women in life. The greater good of Kingston’s message proves that although it may seem impossible

Cultures can shape the identities of individuals. Kingston identity was shape by Chinese and Chinese American culture. "No Name Woman," begins with a talk-story, about Kingston’ aunt she never knew. The aunt had brought disgrace upon her family by having an illegitimate child. In paragraph three, “she could not have been pregnant, you see, because her husband had been gone for years” (621). This shows that Kingston’s aunt had an affair with someone and the result was her pregnancy. She ended up killing herself and her baby by jumping into the family well in China. After hearing the story, Kingston is not allowed to mention her aunt again. The ideas of gender role-play an important role in both cultures. Kingston in her story “No Name

In the Woman Warrior, Kingston develops the theme of hypocrisy being used to develop conflicting identities as to hide one's past in order to illustrate how her mother's past and the life she wished for Kingston didn't alway correlate, resulting in deep long term distrust and potential resentment for her mother.

“Don’t humiliate us.  You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born.  The villagers are watchful.”  Practically through her mother’s indoctrination alone, Kingston was shaped throughout her childhood to respect honor, family, and the very Chinese culture itself.