Woman Warrior Analysis

Fae Myenne Ng uses her debut book, Bone, to assert her ideas on the conflicts within the Chinese American community and her road to peace by focusing on her introduction into the United States, lack

The collective autobiography edited by Alice Pung “Growing Up Asian in Australia” and the short story collection written by Maxine Beneba Clarke, “Foreign Soil” both illustrate the impact of family and cultural expectations on one’s identity. Both authors emphasise how the personal desires and beliefs of individuals brought about by the expectations imposed by their family, their culture and the society on them can serve as a motivation to change and establish their identity. The desire for acceptance and love can motivate an individual to satisfy a certain expectation. Similarly, pressure brought by individuals around a character may bring them to feel obligated to meet standards.

Maxine Hong Kingston's use of talk stories in The Woman Warrior emphasizes that individuals will find a more fulfilling life if they defy the traditional gender norms place on them by society. While contemplating beauty standards in Chinese society in “No Name Woman” Maxine Kingston thinks, “Sister used to sit on their beds and cry together… as their mothers or their slaves removed the bandages for a few minutes each night and let the blood gush back into their veins” (9). From a young age girls are expected to be binding their feet and are told that it is to look beautiful, but in reality that is not why. When a womans feet are bound they are restrained and silenced. These girls could be free and happy but they are restrained by men through this binding.

In The Woman Warrior, Kingston describes the everyday ghosts she sees as a symbolic reference to the unknown people who she cannot identify with in order to illustrate to the reader how isolated she felt around the ghosts. As Kingston and her family continue to live in America, they perceive everyone as unknown because they are very different by culture, race, and way of living. Kingston feels isolated because she is not able to speak English very well, everyone around her thinks she is "strange" because she does not look "normal" in an American society. In addition, her parents do not pay as much attention to her as they do with her brothers because they cherish them over her. She does not care about her grades because her parents would only

Even as a young child, she was incredibly observant and noted that other Chinese girls did not speak either, and so she drew the conclusion that “the silence had to do with being a Chinese girl” (166). Kingston does not say that all Chinese children found themselves in silence – only the girls did. She does not only have to find her identity as a Chinese American, but as a girl, and to figure out how these two facets of her identity work together to define her. Brave Orchid’s cutting her daughter’s tongue resulted in a physiological change; however, Kingston’s issue with speaking proves to be more psychological.

One of the fundamental aspects shaping Uchida’s pride in being a Japanese American is her upbringing and family life. Her childhood, which was informed by her relative well-being, allowed her to immerse into American society more seamlessly than others. From early stages, her American pride sparked because she knew no differently, and had yet to be stripped of basic rights and unjustly imprisoned. Her environment was one to be envied as she grew up in a safe area attending school and lived in comfort due to her parents financial status. However, it would be naive to say Uchida was completely unhindered from finding a sense of entire belonging in American society because there did exist some key and unavoidable differences.

Being torn between two lives results in her never feeling like she belongs anywhere. She just feels like a visitor. “What wasn’t working? Our

A mother in today’s society sole purpose is to be there for her kids. She is supposed to teach them what is wrong from right, and also cater to her children’s needs. However, the actions of mothers worldwide are criticized due to society not fully understanding the decisions the parents have made on behalf of their children. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, the mother-daughter relationship is not an understanding one. This is because the daughter was raised in America while the mother was raised in China.

The Woman Warrior, Memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts, explores Kingston’s identify formation in relation to her mother and female relatives. Kingston uses the first person to narrate five distinct short stories. Each of them contains a central female character. The unique feature of this book is the rearrangement of the traditional Chinese myths, legend of Fa Mu Lan and Ts’ai Yen. The combination of fantasy and reality is closely intertwined in the stories.

In Maxine Hong Kingston’s 1976 novel The Woman Warrior, Hong Kingston, through several novellas, illustrates key moments and stories from her life, including stories of great female warriors like Fa Mulan, and even her own mother, who overcomes adversity and danger, both literal and metaphorical. Through the vehicle of these autobiographical moments and “talk-stories”, Hong Kingston reveals her views on feminism and her views on individual the role and individual liberty of Women in Chinese culture. As a first-generation Chinese-American, she had a very different perspective on her role as a person than her parents, during a time when second-wave feminism was affecting swathes of American cultural ideals. Hong Kingston’s ideas echo many of the key features of this movement, like independence from men, seeking out your own education, and not needing the approval of a man or family to be successful.

Throughout the entire novel, the mothers and daughters face inner struggles, family conflict, and societal collision. The divergence of cultures produces tension and miscommunication, which effectively causes the collision of American morals, beliefs, and priorities with Chinese culture which

From feeling like she didn't belong and was all alone, she changes and realizes that some things are worth fighting

She discovers that her ability to define herself is powered by her experiences and goals. Janie’s development of her own voice showcases her inner growth. Janie has finally threaded her own place in the

Using queerness as a lens of which to read Typical American by Gish Jen and David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly, one can begin to examine the layers of identity in the Western perception of Asians and Asian immigration to the U.S. Though these authors take differing approaches to discussing queerness—queerness is the subtext of Jen’s novel while it is the main focus of Hwang’s play—they both critique the heteronormativity and gender binary and queerness’ intersection with America. This essay will discuss the impact heteronormativity then character’s interactions with the concept of gender. Heteronormativity encompasses several issues these writers grapple with: compulsory monogamy and heterosexuality as the only option for relationships. On the

In doing so, she is able to maintain the idea that she has assimilated into Japanese society and the reason for her sense of rejection is through the fault of Taro, not her own. Consequently, her attempt to conceal her difference in values with Japanese society only amplifies them. As a result, the foreign society continues to reject her even