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Voice In The Woman Warrior

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In Maxine Hong Kingston’s novel, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, one of the central themes of the novel is voice. In the novel Kingston through voice is able to break away from the silence that she is bound by culture and it set to discover a voice for herself. Through this novel Kingston is able to give a voice to disadvantaged females who are voiceless by empowering them to find their own personal voice and self-identities. The theme of voice is prevalent throughout the novel and is exemplified as a cultural and emotional struggle as Kingston discovers her personal voice. Kingston comprehends that in the traditional Chinese culture women do not have voice and are seen as inferior. Kingston introduces silence in the …show more content…

Kingston tells her mother that she is tired of keeping everything a secrecy and not being able to distinguish what is real or what are lies when her mother talks story. Kingston is just tired of living in silence and needs a voice for herself to be able to lead her life the way she want to. Kingston states, “I don’t want to listen to any more of your stories; they have no logic. The scramble me up. You lie with stories. You won’t tell me a story and then say, ‘This is a true story.’ I can’t tell the difference” (Kingston 202). Kingston was tired of all of the secrecy and silence and her voice was finally heard because she fought for her own voice. Kingston fought against her Chinese culture in order to have a loud voice for herself and not be a submissive woman who was destined to be a slave or a wife. In Kingston’s view, “Not everybody think I’m nothing. I am not going to be a slave or a wife” (Kingston 201). As Kingston found a voice for herself she wrote this novel and gave those suppressed females a voice for themselves so they would not be suppressed by empowering them with a powerful weapon which is

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