The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston addresses prevalent topics faced in America today. How should women act? Should women be treated differently from men? In her memoir, Kingston faces many obstacles with her Chinese-American identity such as finding her voice as a young woman. In “White Tigers,” Kingston tells her own version of a popular Chinese ballad, “Fa Mu Lan,” while incorporating her own reality back into the section. In her literary criticism, “Empowerment Through Mythological Imaginings in “Woman Warrior”,” Sue Ann Johnston comments on Kingston’s use of myths in the memoir, and believes that myths are Kingston’s most effective means of conveying messages to readers. Although these myths are effective, Johnston overlooks Kingston’s incorporation of these myths back into her own life. As demonstrated in “White Tigers,” Maxine Hong Kingston reveals that a woman warrior requires strength, dedication, independence, and confidence through her mother’s talk-stories and personal struggles during her life. At the opening of “White Tigers,” Kingston vividly describes the importance of storytelling to girls in the Chinese community. Kingston states, “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. Even if she had to rage across all China, a swordswoman got even with anybody who hurt her family. Perhaps women were once so dangerous that they had to have their
The author, Molly Merryman, earned her Ph.D., from Bowling Green State University in 1995 in American Culture Studies. She teaches at Kent State, and is associated with History and Justice Studies, American Studies, and Women’s programs. She is also a documentary film maker, who has received national and international screenings and awards, along with three Emmys. Merryman’s book, Clipped Wings, includes a useful index, that has cross-referencing for both topics and names. The bibliography of this book is organized into categories of different sources, such as articles, books, government documents, etc.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed the lives of thousands of Japanese Americans, including Mama and her family. As they are uprooted from their home and forced into internment camps, Mama’s character undergoes a profound transformation that shapes her identity and her role in the community. Mama from Farewell to Manzanar is a strong and courageous woman who fought for her family’s survival during World War II. She evolves from a passive victim of discrimination to a powerful and compassionate leader who navigates her family through the challenges of internment. Her journey underscores the resilience of the human spirit and the power of community in times of adversity.
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
The article is about Jennie Chine Hansen speech that was given for the Chinese American Women Oral History Project. Hansen discusses in her speech about the ways exclusion, participation and empowerment shaped not just her life but the lives of all Chinese people living in America. Hansen during her speech also talks about the brief history of Chinese Exclusion Act of 1892 and how that had a significant impact on the parents and grandparents of Chinese American women. She also talks about how there are two generations, the ones who were born in China and the ones who were born in America. She discusses how there is an alienation from her parents and other Chinese people who never learned to speak English who live in America.
Women should not be allowed to join certain parts of the military because of the physical liabilities. In the article, “Sending Women to War” by Mark Thompson, He explains how the controversy about women in the army. Women have not been able to join the military for hundreds of years, and ,in 1993, the air force finally accepted a women and started a movement. Women are now allowed to participate in many sections are the army but some sections are off limits to them. Women are not allowed to join certain sections of the army because of their physical structure.
Many of the Chinese man were unable to have comfortable lives with a loving family due to immigration laws that prevented Chinese women from coming to the United States. (Timothy P. Fong, Pg
about gender. Her fictionalized memoir offers an original articulation of a war which involved easy categorization by a writer who did the
Jacoway, Peggy. “Womanhood in War”. The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 1, No.4, December 1942 For my second article review, I chose to read Peggy Jacoway’s article, titled, “Womanhood in War” At the time of this article, Ms. Jacoway lived in Kansas City, Missouri.
Critical use of Chinese myths in the Woman Warrior shows a sharp contrast with her real life in America and accentuates the equality between women and men.
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.
Lizzy S. Ruacho Mrs. Jarrell AP English lll 4 April 2016 The Woman Warrior In order for people to move into the future, they must first accept themselves and their past. It is also a necessity in human nature to find a purpose as well as their social role in their environment in order to know which direction to take in life and live in peace and harmony. Maxine Hong Kingstone captures the essence of self-identity in The Woman Warrior, a memoir of her life as a Chinese-American woman.
The Woman Warrior During early centuries, men received better treatment than women in terms of status socially and politically. Men have political position and runs a business while women stay behind or their home. Maxine Kingston “The Woman Warrior” novel is influenced by this historical event. Her book was an autobiography, and a compilation of folk story told by her Chinese mother.
Elizabeth Leung explains, “I was a good student, extremely docile. That is what girls were supposed to do: obey and be quiet” (Nam 31). Leung expresses her disgust with the common conception about women. She tells on, “I also learned how the great white men of America have been kind enough to educate the wretched countries of the Third World about the
Her higher education level is only a path to marry better. A qualified woman should be tolerant towards the demand of her husband, parents and the society. These gender stereotypes rooted in the Chinese history are like fog, numbing and redirecting the self-revolution of Chinese female. LI Ruijue,a relatively minor character in Ba Jin’s masterpiece:Family, represents a brand group of female who are situating their gender role all life long as a typical eastern lady:they are imprisoned in the exquisite house,staying far away from the noises in the outside world,they learn the" three obedience and four virtues" along with the basic knowledge of poem-writing in their early childhood. The influence of this sort of knowledge pushed them to bear the heavy burden of old morals and norms3(Zhou, F. (1999).
“She identifies herself as an American writer whose background is mostly Chinese.” Diana Chang’s description of her identity is crucial to the reader’s understanding of her story, “The Oriental Contingent” for she described her two nationalities as different aspects of her identity, an indication of conflict between them, just how the protagonists, Connie Sung and Lisa Mallory, experienced this conflict for they are both Chinese-American women. In her story, Connie Sung and Lisa Mallory overcome their internal conflict, of how they perceived their own identities to be invalid compared to other Asians, emerge through several elements such as Character, Theme, and Figure of speech by revealing their concealed point of views that showed they