Silence In No Name Woman

They are afraid, that the “Canadians” will assume that they are poor. in the poor village in china in which grandmamma grew up, searching through the garbage was acceptable, but in Canadian it is frowned upon. Therefore, Choy identifies that these two generations have different perspectives about Chinese culture, and fails to grasp important information about the norms and cultural views. While the children attempted to fit in, their father and stepmother were determined to hold on to their Chinese roots. It shows that as the younger generations, integrate into the American culture, individuals move forward, and the definitions of “Chinese” as older generation alters, for younger generations. It also portrays that the older generations politically need to adapt need to adopt with the “Canadians”, because as time progresses, identities culture and traditional perspectives will begin to change with the Chinese-Canadian culture. It demonstrates that culture will have to integrate into an Canadian society in order to be inclusive

According to Mackie (1996: 1001) the practice of foot binding spread from the imperial palace, transmitting down through the classes until it was nearly universally adopted. Thus, foot binding can be seen as symbolising one's status. Foot binding came to symbolise gentility, and it was only the absolute lowest of the lower class who were the exception to the convention. Such destitute individuals could not afford for female family members to be foot-bound when their manual labour was needed (Mackie 1996: 1001). However, to avoid such disgrace, many poor families preferred to “struggle along for a precarious living, bringing up their daughters with small feet” (Doolittle 1865: 201). This is in keeping with Veblen's (1934) view that foot binding is a costly display of a family's wealth (Mackie 1996: 1002). Likewise in Africa, female mutilation reportedly spread partly due to individuals wanting to emulate their higher status neighbours who had already adopted the practice (Mackie 1996: 1004). In addition to symbolising wealth, Mackie suggests that female mutilation symbolises a family's commitment to values of purity and chastity (Mackie 1996: 1000, 1008). Given the costs and risks associated with female mutilation, that a family would choose to commit to the practice shows how willing they are to ensure that males can be confident in terms of paternity. With this intention, female mutilation can be seen as symbolising a female's purity and future fidelity (Mackie 1996:

All of the woman who migrated from China all have a curtain pride for their own mothers and cultures cultures respectively. Major acts of pride go into what these woman do while raising their daughters, as they want to push their daughters for success. “What will I say? What can I tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything. . . .” The aunties are looking at me as if I had become crazy right before their eyes. . . . And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant. . . . They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese . . . who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.” The other mothers are flabbergasted that June does not know that much about her mother. The mothers also have their own pride in their daughters, and all the daughters have been together, so this phrase from June scares the other mothers of what their own daughters might think about them. In Chinese tradition, respecting your mother is very important, due to June being raised in America, she does not realise what she has just proclaimed as bad until the other mothers react to it.

Furthermore, Kingston uses her aunt as a symbol or model of what the Chinese fear becoming. Paragraph 21 states “…the feelings playing about in one’s guts [must] not be turned into action,” which means the Chinese believe fantasies and sinful behavior must be suppressed instead of expressed. Kingston’s aunt broke this rule by digging a freckle out of her face, ripping stray hairs out of her head, and spending large amounts of time fixating on her looks in order to seduce a man as stated in paragraphs 26 and

We have all been in a situation where we have immigrated to a new country for different reasons regarding, better future, or education. In the book Jade of Peony, Wayson Choy describes a struggle of a Chinese family as they settle in Canada, with their new generation of kids born here, the family struggles to keep their children tied to their Chinese customs and traditions as they fit in this new country. The Chinese culture needs to be more open minded as it limits the future generation’s potential. Chinese culture limitations are seen through the relationship expectations, education, gender roles and jobs.

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

Despite Kingston not even knowing her aunt’s name, she feels she has a connection to her. Kingston thinks about her aunt’s life and how she became pregnant. At first, Kingston blames the pregnancy on the aunt. She explains that the aunt took time when getting ready and cared about her appearance, which was unusual for Chinese women after they have been married. Kingston describes, “Once my aunt found a freckle on her chin… She dug it out with a hot needle and washed the wound with peroxide” (Kingston 328). This leads Kingston to believe that the aunt had an affair. However, Kingston later believes that her aunt was possibly raped. When describing her aunt’s marriage Kingston writes, “ When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband, she stood tractable beside the best rooster, his proxy, and promised before they met that she would his forever” (Kingston 326). Chinese women were obedient. Kingston thinks that there could not be the possibility that her aunt cheated on her husband because she was a dutiful wife. Sympathizing with the aunt, Kingston writes, “ I want her fear to have lasted as long as rape lasted so that the fear could have been contained” (Kingston 326). She reflects on how horrible it must have been living in such a small community with her rapist.

The concept of foot binding was a shocking concept for the role of Chinese women to submit themselves to torture and represented a unique opportunity to gain the respect and recognition of the in-laws in The Joy Luck Club and The Good Earth who would praise the beautiful tiny feet even beyond the woman’s dowry, as an undeniable proof of capacity and obedience. According to Tan, “there are only two kinds of daughters, those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind!” (142). Foot binding was a significant role for Chinese women and the concept of beauty no matter the consequences of their pain in the body. The concept of obedience was the role of Chinese woman that was focused in The Joy Luck Club, which was how the characters based their views on. The Chinese mother’s desire was for their daughters to follow the obedience concept and act according to the regulations. For example, one of the mothers complained about not being able to teach their daughter about the Chinese character, which would help obey her parents and listen to her mother’s mind. Another mother talked about herself and being obedient as Tan stated, “I was an obedient wife; just as they taught me” (61). The Chinese mothers in the Joy Luck Club grew up with an incredibly restrictive idea of what it meant to be a woman. They realized that there was no good people in this world and only people who wanted to take advantage of their heart and soul. This belief was also true in The Good Earth as O-Lan

She considers that “some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret evil.” (Kingston 6). Kingston writes her initial version of the “No Name Woman,” who was raped, raided, and died an outcast, but Kingston determines that this telling does not fit her understanding of China. Therefore, Kingston entertains another hypothetical, that her aunt took a lover and saved him from shame by giving “silent birth” and not revealing the lover’s identity (Kingston 11). Here, Kingston critically examines the inherited talk-story of her mother to determine the meaning she should obtain from the death of her aunt. Her mother’s conclusion is that she must not become pregnant, but Kingston is uncertain about the simplicity of her mother’s story. In the “No Name Woman,” Kingston introduces the fictitious memoir structure that she utilizes through the variety of interpretations of her aunt’s story. Consistently through the memoir, Kingston writes contrasting accounts of the same stories and imagines the stories of others to further her themes about silence, authenticity, and identity formation.

    As part of a practice, Chinese girls have their feet put in bindings. These bindings are part of a process known as foot binding. The foot binding reconstructs their feet physically and marks their worthiness in the eyes of their civilization. Lily has her feet put in bindings for these reasons. However, not only does it change her feet and worth, but the foot binding also alters her “whole character,” causing her to “follow” demands “without question” (4). It is from her lack of rebellion that Lily hides her emotional suffering. Her hurt stems from not telling anyone of the “torturous pain” buried deep in her “heart, mind, and soul” (4). Moreover, from this agony, a battle rages with “the person [she] should

In 1997, Dorothy Ko published an article in the Journal of Women’s History called “The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeen-Century China”. The article is organized with a brief introduction as to what footbinding is, the negative outlook on this practice due to problematic archives, and then she discusses the examples she gives to support her thesis. Ko’s thesis was “Chinese elite males in the seventeenth century regarded footbinding in three ways: as an expression of Chinese wen civility, as a marker of ethnic boundaries separating Han from Manchu, and as an ornament or embellishment of the body.” Since Ko is a celebrated and established author on women in early East Asia, the article “The Body as Attire: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeen Century China” is an accurate and useful source if one is trying to study that area.

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.

In No Name Woman by Maxine Kingston, our author wants to tell us the story of her “nameless” aunt and give her a voice. Her aunt became pregnant by someone other than her husband. No Name Woman wouldn’t tell who the father was, hoping to protect him with her silence, which then turned her into the victim. This No Name Woman has neither a story nor a voice, but by writing about her aunt’s story Kingston gives her No Name aunt the voice that she deserves. For Kingston “the aunt’s real punishment was not the raid, swiftly inflicted by the villagers, but the family’s deliberately forgetting her…”

When coupled with the line "the bound feet" (Piercy, 20), the poem appears as if it were a comment solely about the injustice forced upon Chinese women from 934 until 1949. Foot binding is a painful process which includes breaking all of the toes and arch of the foot to grossly alter the shape of the foot, so that the foot, when mature would be no more than four inches long.  The first break was usually made when a girl was three to five years old, then the feet were wrapped in yards of cloth to prevent them from growing or reshaping. The pain from the initial break was nothing compared to the enduring pain the women experienced for the rest of their lives. The pain was caused by the drastically deformed feet. (Chinese foot binding- lotus shoes)

Schiavenza, Matt. “The Peculiar History of Foot Binding in China.” In The Atlantic. 16 September, 2013 article was published. Web. 1st October, 2013 article was accessed. From http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/09/the-peculiar-history-of-foot-binding-in-china/279718/