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Literary analysis of the woman (Click to select text)
Identity Crisis Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior presents the struggles of a Chinese-American woman growing up as she attempts to reconcile two cultures, a female devaluing Chinese culture and influences by an American culture, while developing her own identity as a Chinese-American. Using William R. Schroeder's model of interpretation will help to define the struggles and complications experienced by Kingston as relevant to my interpretation. Schroeder’s model of interpretation presents eight interpretive elements: explicit statements, imagery, narrative point of view, plot/action, characters, notable effects, horizons, and world. The most important interpretive elements used in my interpretation were imagery, plot/action, and characters. Using these interpretive elements helps to give basis to my interpretation. Kingston's novel abounds with imagery, from the ghosts and barbarians, to the different colors (black, white, and red). Every “talk-story” has a place and meaning and every character is presented in a way to clarify Kingston's motives for writing. His model also presents seven evaluative criteria to which my interpretation applies: consistency, proportionateness, adequacy, completeness, depth, sensitivity, and integratedness. Of these, my interpretation best fulfills the evaluative criteria of consistency, completeness, and integratedness. It is evident that the narrator, Kingston, has many conflicts with what is being taught at home and what is experienced in the American society. Through the myth and reality stories Kingston tells, she establishes her beliefs and values of the Chinese culture and contrasts them with the expectations of the American culture. The older generation, her mother, uses their native language to instill the traditional values and the idea of becoming an individual - a “woman warrior.” However, the American culture creates a struggle in balancing these two contradicting forces of being traditional and having a sense of identity. The first “talk-story” creates the basis of the Chinese traditional values Kingston encounters at home. This story describes the outcast of the aunt who has an affair with, and becomes pregnant to, an unnamed man in her village. The seriousness of her betrayal was conveyed through the repeated words like “forbidden,” “alone,” and “separate.” “The villagers punished the aunt for acting as if she could have a private life, secret and apart from them” (p.13). The Chinese culture is initially portrayed as brutal and ever present in Kingston’s home where “even now China wraps double binds around my feet” (p.48). “When we Chinese girls listened to the adults talk-story, we learned that we failed if we grew up to be but wives or slaves. We could be heroines, swordswomen” (p.19). Kingston’s mother also uses a “talk-story” to instill the idea of becoming an individual, a woman warrior. In the chapter entitled “White Tigers,” Kingston explores the tale of Fa Mu Lan, a daughter who took her father’s place in the war against the Han. Through this story, Kingston realizes that being a failure (wife or slave) for a female is traditional in the Chinese culture and therefore recognizes the importance of becoming an individual. “She said I would grow up a wife or slave, but she taught me the song of the warrior woman, Fa Mu Lan. I would have to grow up a warrior woman” (p.20). She also recognizes her mother as being a warrior. Brave Orchid, Kingston’s mother, was an important figure in her village back in China; she had attained a doctor’s degree. “I’m never getting married, never!” “Who’d want to marry you anyway? Noisy. Talking like a duck. Disobedient. Messy. And I know about college. What makes you think you’re the first one to think about college? I was a doctor. I went to medical school... I don’t see why you can’t be a doctor like me.” (p.202) Brave Orchid hints to her daughter that getting married is a tradition which is to be taught but not necessarily followed; like her mother, Kingston has the opportunity to be an individual. As a Chinese-American woman, Kingston seeks to balance the two ideals of tradition and individuality. However, Kingston recognizes that women in particular cultures are silenced and they have no real voice. “Women in the old China did not choose. Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret evil... She obeyed him; she always did as she was told” (p.6). Kingston is taught that women have no control over their lives; that they are mere puppets. So insignificant are they, that “[her aunt] was one of the stars, a bright dot in blackness, without a home, without a companion, in eternal cold and silence” (p.14). Because of her sins she becomes a spirit without a home and no longer has any importance in her society. As a result of the brutal punishment reserved for people who act against the wishes of their society, it becomes even more difficult for Chinese-American females to define individual roles for themselves within the American society. Their individual identity is lost to the expectations of upholding the Chinese culture and maintaining their traditional values in America. The American culture is portrayed as a place of corruption and evil. The description of non-Chinese people as “ghosts” implies that they are barbarians or demons. By calling all non-Chinese people “ghosts,” the Chinese categorize these individuals as they did the “No Name Woman,” as unacceptable and undesirable by the Chinese culture. “But America has been full of machines and ghosts... Once upon a time the world was so thick with ghosts, I could hardly breathe; I could hardly walk, limping my way around the White Ghosts and their cars” (p.96-97). Kingston uses the word machines to signify the bombing planes of World War II which haunted her in her childhood dreams. Along with the “ghosts,” America truly signifies a place of evil. However, America is Kingston’s home. She’s confused about how she can live in a place which she cannot accept or be accepted by. In order to appear “American-normal,” Kingston tells how “we American-Chinese girls had to whisper to make ourselves American-feminine” (p.172). This attitude illustrates the need and desire to fit into the American culture, no matter how America is presented by her Chinese culture. Because “American-Chinese” girls were “born among ghosts, were taught by ghosts, and were ourselves half ghosts” (p.183), Kingston must learn to adapt to living with the demons of which she is a part of. Kingston is moving further from becoming traditional, and will eventually discover the necessity of becoming an individual. The differences between the Chinese and American cultures creates enormous barriers to be faced by Chinese-Americans. Language is one such barrier that Kingston struggles to overcome, and her silence initially causes her to flunk kindergarten. The difference in languages causes Kingston to experience difficulties in learning English. “It was when I found out I had to talk that school became misery, that the silence became misery” (p.166). As a child, Kingston’s efforts to be heard within her home and family were ignored by the difficulty she experienced communicating out loud in English. She realized that “the other Chinese girls did not talk either, so [she] knew the silence had to do with being a Chinese girl” (p.166), especially since young girls had been raised to lack confidence and a feeling of self-worth. “You don’t see I’m trying to help you out, do you? ... Don’t you ever want to be a cheerleader? Or a pompom girl? What are you going to do for a living? Yeah, you’re going to have to work because you can’t be a housewife... If you don’t talk, you can’t have a personality... Why do I waste my time on you?” Sniffling and snorting, I couldn’t stop crying and talking at the same time. (p.180-181) This dramatic scene near the end of the book creates a sense that Kingston is trying to “save” someone from becoming a traditional Chinese girl. Kingston sees herself in this girl and hates it. She is able to step outside of herself and to see what she has become. The reference in becoming a “cheerleader” and “pompon girl” illustrates the significance of being an individual and finding one’s identity. Kingston is shown to have been impacted by the American culture because she views becoming a "cheerleader" or "pompon girl" as representatives of American identities while reference to becoming a housewife suggests traditional Chinese values. In her youth, Kingston envisioned an important person as being a “cheerleader.” Analyzing the qualities of being a cheerleader, one would find that it is a person who’s admirable and can assume a leadership position amongst his/her peers. Therefore, becoming a “cheerleader” or “pompom girl” also suggests that Kingston is striving to be more than just an individual, but a warrior (Chinese value). The combination of both American and Chinese values in Kingston’s voice shows the need for balance between the different cultural practices. The Woman Warrior shows two distinct societies, with similar and different values, in which the combination of cultural practices influence Kingston’s sense of identity of individualism. At the end of the book, Kingston’s ability to find her voice and speak out to the girl in the basement constitutes her individuality. She once was that girl and went through that misery of “talking” English, but ultimately Kingston finds her individualism in the American society. “Those of us in the first American generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America” (p.5). Kingston would learn that she had many misconceptions of the Chinese culture due to her immaturity as a young girl. “Have you eaten rice today, little girl?”... “Yes, I have,” I said out of politeness. “Thank you.” (“No, I haven’t,” I would have said in real life, mad at the Chinese for lying so much. “I’m starved...” (p.21) As a child, she believed that in saying such things was wrong. However, as Kingston matured, she learned that what she was taught and practiced was custom. “And it doesn’t matter if a person is ugly; she can still do schoolwork.” "I didn’t say you were ugly.” “You say that all the time.” “That’s what we’re supposed to say. That’s what Chinese say. We like to say the opposite.” (p.203) She begins to recognize the many instances in which she prejudged her mother. “[She] had to leave home in order to see the world logically, logic the new way of seeing... Shine floodlights into dark corners: no ghosts” (p.204). Once she was able to reflect on her childhood, by herself, she was able to truly comprehend both cultures; and to reconcile them. Her being able to blend these two cultures into a single identity leads to the achievement of an individual identity, a young, female Chinese-American, instead of the typical traditional housewife she did not want to be. She concludes her book, in the same manner as if she finally concludes her self studies. She may not feel as if she is a part of the American culture and found many of its aspects to be confusing and strange. And yet, as she was able to incorporate her own culture with the strange and “barbaric” one. She found her identity to be a mixture of cultures, as a Chinese-American female. And. “It translated well” (p.209).
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