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Maxine Kingston's Contribution To Literature
Maxine Kingston's Contribution to Contemporary Literature
Maxine Hong Kingston's literature falls into the Contemporary Literature movement and many critics consider her work to be an important contribution on the feminist front as well as that of Asian literature. Kingston was born in Stockton, California in 1940 and is the best recognized Asian-American writer of today. (2094) The Woman Warrior demonstrates the struggle experienced as a Chinese-American growing up in America as well as focusing on other issues such as success and mother-daughter relationships. The Woman Warrior is able to tell the story of one woman who discovers her self through overcoming the memory of her heritage and finding her place in society.
The Woman Warrior is formed from what many critics like to call fiction and fact and memory and imagination (Lauter 2094). The book examines the "difficulties in Kingston's development as a woman and as a Chinese-American" (2094). Because of it's nature and style, the book demonstrates how stories can "shape character and behavior" (2094). These stories are important because Kingston is able to develop her own sense of self by writing them. Kingston is able to learn from each character's circumstance and is able to develop her own strength of character.
Each chapter in the novel revolves around a female character that affects Kingston's life.
Most of the stories illustrate how the female is affected by and relates to male-dominance in society. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the stories is the fact that the women often hold themselves...
For example, the story "No Name Woman" begins with the mother telling the daughter, "You must not tell anyone" (Kingston 3). The mother is repeating this story in a shroud of secrecy but yet she insists on telling her daughter. In addition, it is the women who continue to say things such as "better to have geese than girls" (Kingston 2111) in the short story "White Tigers." Through these examples, Kingston is able to illustrate the difficulties involved with being a Chinese-American born in the United States.
The image of the warrior is important as we see especially in the characters of Fa Mu Lan and Brave Orchid. Perhaps "White Tigers" allows us to see this side of the warrior more than any other as it revolves around Kingston's fantasy of becoming a warrior. This chapter of the book demonstrates Kingston's incredible style since she has never been to China. For instance, she describes the mountains as if they were "shaded in pencil, rocks like charcoal rubbings" (Kingston 2096).
In addition, as a warrior standing on a hill, the roads below her "moved... The woods and the plains moved too; the land was peopled -- the Han people, the People of One Hundred Surnames, marching with one heart, our tatters flying" (2109). "White Tigers" Kingston's fantasy of the female figure being able to rise above her position in life. It is also important to note that she not only succeeds at this, but that she also becomes a great leader. In addition, in "At the Western Palace," we see the same type of bravery displayed in Brave Orchid. Brave Orchid is a take-charge person who is one of the…
Works Cited
Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Lexington D.C. Heath and Company. 1990.
Kingston, Maxine. The Woman Warrior. New York: McGraw Hill. 2000.
Her visions of her mother as some kind of monster-deliverer appear in Kingston's nightmares. She states on page 86, "My mother has given me pictures to dream -- nightmare babies that recur." The grotesque imagery of her mother delivering monsters corresponds also with her dreamlike memories of foods they ate when she was a child in China. The images converge in Kingston's head to provide the foundation for her
It is true that while Kingston can use irony against the stereotypes of passivity imposed upon Chinese femininity, at other times she seems to use these stereotypes less self-consciously. Her portrayal of her mother calling white people 'ghosts,' and her decision to name her mother Brave Orchid, seem to reflect cultural construction of Oriental women and Asians in general as superstitious and somewhat primitive in their understanding of the world.
Woman Warrior My aunt haunts me -- her ghosts drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her," (16). Aunts, the sisters of fathers or mothers who serve as surrogate female role models, play a central role in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. However, Kingston's aunts are no warrior women; in fact, "No-Name Woman" and "Moon Orchid" embody the antithesis
Maxine Hong Kingston's memoir, the Woman Warrior, may be considered a microcosm of the work as a whole. The section "No Name Woman" incorporates the recurring themes of silence, invisibility, ghosts and using words as weapons. It is argued, that the story's central theme is the process of "finding a personal voice" (Ling). This is mainly about the Aunt, but also about the mother and the narrator. It is a
Woman Warrior Maxine Kingston's Woman warrior has been a controversial addition to the literature written by Chinese-American writers. The writer has tried to answer the critical question of Chinese-American identity and hence been criticized for adopting an orientalist framework to win approval of the west. The woman warrior speaks of a culture that neatly fits the description of the "Other" in the orientalist framework. It appears alien, remote and immensely
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