The Woman Warrior: Memoirs Of A Girlhood Among Ghosts

Four Chinese mothers have migrated to America. Each hope for their daughter’s success and pray that they will not experience the hardships faced in China. One mother, Suyuan, imparts her knowledge on her daughter through stories. The American culture influences her daughter, Jing Mei, to such a degree that it is hard for Jing Mei to understand her mother's culture and life lessons. Yet it is not until Jing Mei realizes that the key to understanding who her

As a child, Waverly didn’t enjoy following her mother’s rules and Chinese tradition. At that age she would’ve loved to get rid of her Chinese features. But as an adult, Waverly seemed concerned that she would fit in with the locals during her trip to China, and upset when her mother told her that the people would know that she was a foreigner. Instead of trying to reject her culture as before, Waverly seems to want “the best of both worlds”, a way to embrace both her American lifestyle and Chinese culture. However, her mother, Lindo Jong, deemed the attempt at balance “too late” and describes her daughter as “American-made”.

It is mandatory to understand the history behind Intersectionality and it’s upbringing to understand how it ties into cultural identity. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s classic article “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color” helps to understand the struggle that women of color face with entwined differences that are not confronted and dealt with accordingly. Crenshaw mentions that, “The problem with identity politics is not that it fails to transcend difference, as some critics charge, but rather the opposite -- that is frequently conflates or ignores infra group differences. In the context of violence against women, this elision of difference is problematic, fundamentally because the violence that many women experience is

As many women struggled to retain their values and traditions, there were existing male dominated conceptions of race and white dominated conceptions of gender. Kimberle Crenshaw describes the concept of intersectionality where race and gender interact in various ways to shape multiple dimensions experiences for different groups

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

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

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.

A young Chinese-American girl in the 1950’s would try to break out of her parents' cultural norms and prove to her parents that their thought process is invalid, and doesn’t fit inside the parent’s patriarchal cultural mindset. The young Chinese-American girl we follow throughout the story is, Maxine Hong Kingston, and she believes that women aren’t just to be married off and truly do have a life of their own. The Woman Warrior is a book written by Maxine Hong Kingston wrote a book based on her own childhood events. As she breaks through these stereotypes, as she breaks these stereotypes she learns through both Chinese cultural stories and family stories told by her mother and father. Maxine would express throughout the story, the subtle word choice that her mother would use to incline how Maxine should be lucky to be born and have a good life.

The first article ‘No Name Woman’ is written by Maxine Hong Kingston. The article describes the gender roles and responsibilities expected by the Chinese Society for the women and girls during the 1920’s. The author narrates about heard aunt and how she lived during the 1920sin a conservative village in China. The main conflict in this piece is man versus society where the young girl is viewed as an outcast by the community she lives in. the major conflict is based on gender disparity at the time.

This education, seen from the other side of the cultural gap, is what makes Lena see her mother as a weak person. Lena has a job, an American husband, she lives an American life, unlike her mother, who is attached to weird old disused Chinese traditions. But she herself is not happy, as her mother can see. Her husband is not as good as he might be: he exploits her, paying her a too low wage, never recognizes her contribution to their success as architects,... On the other hand, Ying- Ying marriage, although imperfect, is based on firmer grounds of respect and goodness towards each other than that of Lena.

All throughout history women have been considered as the weaker sex. A woman without a man by her side commanding her was classified as a deviant since the beginning of time. Even though women have been perceived to be submissive and subjective in history, they have, in fact, been proven to be extremely rebellious, even though it has troubled them more. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s story “No Name Woman” the narrator’s aunt was punished by being erased and forgotten from history because she was accused of committing adultery as she became pregnant years after her husband went the United States. Her getting pregnant demonstrated that she was submissive to the point where she was not able to

In the Woman Warrior Kingston develops a motif using ghosts in order to illustrate the differences between the Chinese and American cultures. During the novel ghosts are typically represented as the opposing culture and ideas that the Chinese do not understand. After Moon Orchid immigrates to America, her inability to adapt to her new culture slowly takes a toll on her, eventually causing her to go insane. Shortly after she moves in with her sister she starts seeing Mexican ghosts that she thinks are spying on her and plotting to take her life. As time passes and her insanity seems to be increasing she moves out of her sister’s apartment to get one of her own in order to escape the ghosts. Kingston describes Moon Orchid’s struggle as she

No Name Woman focuses on Kingston’s mother telling her story about her aunt’s suicide and what lead to such drastic decision. While explaining the story Kingston reveals superstitions that Chinese communities have and how it influenced her aunt’s death. Aiaa, the aunt, was the only daughter and was obviously cherished however when she becomes pregnant and her community finds out chaos beginnings. The community start harassing her and her family’s house and eventually she becomes isolated. The moral of the story is that womanhood has been considered the worst thing since the dawn of time an Kingston’s essay and the Chinese Culture do not fail to fulfill such injustice.

One’s identity can’t be given before one achieves a sense of character through self-reflection and personal experience. In “No Name Woman” Maxine Hong Kingston narrates the tale of her unmarried aunt who is obliged to suffer the consequences of her pregnancy in the ambiguous world of her Chinese roots. We are not given a name for the narrator nor for her family. We therefore might wonder who might be considered a “No name Woman” both in the book’s world and in our own. With the oxymoron No Name Woman, Kingston calls attention to reconcile both her Chinese and American identities to and mold her own identity as a result. This makes us think more deeply about the multiple meanings of Chinese experience in America.

“Relationship-honoring” is the backbone of Eastern Asian cultures which conflicts with the western respect for “individual freedom” and the journey to “personal discovery” as defined by Susan Cain, author of a nonfiction book published in 2012, Quiet. Maxine Hong Kingston explores this cultural clash in her 1976 memoir, Woman Warrior, though following an insecure young daughter of a Chinese-immigrant family who increasingly becomes independent as she is influenced by American Culture. Kingston uses Maxine’s journey to portray that in a world that values individualism, people who are raised according to foreign traditions of conformity often discover that their parents are not capable mentors. This struggle eventually causes them break away from their parent’s orthodox ideals.