The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston

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

A subheading within the family section is called “permission to speak” this section persuades students to write their story without worrying about the opinions of others. Subsequently, the “No Name Women,” is about a girl who is told by her mother at the very begin that “[y]ou must not tell anyone . . . what I'm about to tell you,” instantly we are told that the story she is sharing was meant to be a secret. Although, Kingston was supposed to keep this to herself she decides to share her story. Similar, to the chapter’s suggestion Kingston, drowns out the voices of her family member telling her to not tell the story. It is important to note that every writer has a purpose for sharing each story, ad those who succeed are the ones that do not

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.

“No Name Woman,” an essay by Maxine Hong Kingston, examines the intricacies of culture and identity. The essay centers on the story of when Kingston’s mother first told Kingston about her deceased aunt, the no name woman. In “the old China” (310), Kingston’s aunt became pregnant out of wedlock. The villagers, furious at her betrayal of their way of life, raided no name woman’s family’s home. No name woman’s family preceded to shout at her for bringing such misfortune upon them.

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.

Kingston contrasts Maxine’s American education with stories told by her parents, for her edification, to demonstrate the opposing cultures found in her life. The beginning of the book starts with Maxine’s mother telling her about her ostracized aunt who had a baby with a random man instead of her husband. When the villagers raided out of discontent, her family “stood together in the middle of [their] house, in the family hall with the pictures and tables of the ancestors around [them], and looked straight ahead” (4). Maxine’s mother is implicating to Maxine that her actions don’t just affect her, but her entire lineage; that the family name is more important to protect than cherishing an individual. A recurring motif in Woman Warrior are ghosts,

The Woman Warrior is about five women who are related to Maxine Hong Kingston, the author of the book, the first chapter is about her long-dead aunt, a imaginary female warrior who was called Fa Mu Lan who was mentioned in chapter two, Kingston’s mother who was mentioned as Moon Orchid in the third chapter, in the fourth chapter which is about about an emperor who was married to five women, and in chapter five, the last section of the book, talks about Kingston herself.

In this essay, I decided not to summarize Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior since we have already done that by posting our weekly responses and since it is an open essay; also it might seem too boring for you to read the same thing again. Instead, I wanted to write more on particular subjects that Kingston had talked in the interviews.

It is, of course, a story about storytelling, particularly the oral story telling through which humans have passed down most of our stories for most of our history. Women in particular, even after the advent of mass literacy, were barred for much of our history from education (and therefore the ability to read), have been historically the torch bearers of oral culture. After all, garrulousness and gossip are still stereotypes almost exclusively attributed to women. Of course an anti-woman society sees these qualities as bad things, rather than a means of shaping our reality and connecting to the people around us, of forming and maintaining communities. “The Blank Page” is another tale in which a woman tries to write her own story, despite the considerable pressures of royal life encroaching in upon her. Her “blank page” represents the willingness of many women to resist the attempts to tell or change their stories. “Silence will speak” says the old woman. Surely this nameless princess was shunned by some and scorned by others, those who tried to use such disapproval to make her change her story. I myself find comfort in the telling of her story by this mysterious old woman, comfort in the idea that stories of women inimical to what men and society have to say about us can be preserved, if only through word of mouth, by other

In The Woman Warrior, Kingston develops the motif of comparing herself to a swordswoman in order to illustrate how the talk stories of Fa Mu Lan aid her in combating the racism and oppression she faces as a Chinese woman in America through embodying the power of a woman warrior she possesses in her fantasies. Throughout the chapter White Tiger, Kingston explores the mythical story of Fa Mu Lan, placing herself in the role of the woman warrior and explaining her fantasy of living with an old man and woman, who carve the path to her success as a warrior. Later in the chapter, she contrasts Mulan's grievances to her own difficulties as a Chinese-American. Kingston ends the chapter by comparing herself to Mulan through stating,

Maxine Hong Kingston's novel The Woman Warrior highlights conflicting views of women that spans decades through autobiographical and biographical accounts to demonstrate the harmful impact of contradicting viewpoints on the functionality of a family that differs not only in generation but

In the first chapter of The Woman Warrior, No Name Woman, Kingston tells the story her mother told her as a teenager about her aunt’s untimely death. Throughout the story, many remarks proving the empowerment of Chinese women are made. In the middle of the story, Kingston’s mother stops to say, “Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born” (Kingston 5). This is seemingly demeaning, but is actually empowering.

Kingston illustrates silence in a variety of forms throughout the narrative. Early in the text we are presented with this theme of silence in two separate time periods. First we have the mother telling the story of the aunt in secret to a young Kingston who has just begun menstruating as a cautionary tale on how to conduct herself in a particular manner as a Chinese-American woman. Kingston begins her narrative with the introduction of this forced silence as she looks back at her mother telling her, “You must not tell anyone what I am about to tell you. In China your father has 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” (3). The mother is demanding Kingston to remain silent and requiring her to be obedient to this command while breaking this silence herself by speaking this story behind her husbands back.

In Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, she reflects on the lives of five women, one of them being herself. She compares herself with the other women. She realizes the lessons that they teach and how she can apply them to her own life.

In order to demonstrate the superficial knowledge of the Asian culture in American, Kingston uses herself as the narrator to create a “role embodiment narrative” that is The Woman Warrior. Readers are introduced to a narrator, who despite being of Asian descent, perceives the Asian culture as no less foreign, unfamiliar, or threatening than non-Asians. This invitation for reader identification even extends to Asian readers, who are led to see that even Kingston, an Asian-American scholar, constantly expresses a sense of confusion, loss, and incomprehension. In essence, the narrator serves as the avatar for the book’s non-Asian and Asian readers, with the majority of the former having ever only known the Asian American culture peripherally and