Analysis Of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior

Writer, Maxine Hong Kingston, in her excerpt “No Name Woman”, from her book The Woman Warrior, narrates a part of her history from the story of her family. Within her excerpt from paragraph 21 to paragraph 27, Kingston recounts a story of her aunt committing suicide after giving birth to an illegitimate child. Her purpose is to share and inform about her Chinese culture through her family’s past. She expresses an ambivalent tone while retelling her aunt’s story in order to appeal to contradictory thoughts in her mature readers. With the use of ethos and pathos, diction and syntax, Kingston is able to create an ambivalent tone toward her aunt’s history.

Immediately when reading this excerpt, it is clear that the author is appealing to ethos

That being the case, the author’s tone can be further categorized as angry, confused, and detached. A hint of anger can be identified in paragraph 21, which states: “She offered us up for a charm that vanished with tiredness, a pigtail that didn't toss when the wind died.”. As the continuation of the previous quote, “Why, the wrong lighting could erase the dearest thing about him.”, Kingston expresses her confusion against her aunt. Outside of paragraph 21 to 27, the author states: “I want her fear to have lasted just as long as rape lasted so that the fear could have been contained.”; similar to quote from paragraph 21, she demonstrates her anger toward her aunt. Lastly, the author presents a feeling of detachment in the following quote: “Unless I see her life branching into mine, she gives me no ancestral help.” In short, Kingston feels angry, confused and detached at times upon her aunt’s story as she does not completely understand

In paragraph 25, after describing her aunt’s method of hair removal, the author provides her understanding , or sympathy, by stating: “My mother did the same to me and my sisters and herself. I used to believe that the expression ‘caught by the short hairs’ meant a captive held with a depilatory string.”. The diplomatic feeling is established by Kingston in following quote, from the same paragraph : “I hope that the man my aunt loved appreciated a smooth brow, that he wasn’t just a tits-and-a** man.” Furthermore, the author illustrates concern for her aunt in the following quote in paragraph 26: “More attention to her looks than these pullings of hairs and pickings at spots would have caused gossip among the villagers.” At last, within paragraph 27, the author establishes a feeling of optimism, hopeful, through the following text: “Still there must have been a marvelous freeing of beauty when a worker laid down her burden and stretched and arched.”Although the Chinese did not appreciate a bent back, Kingston remains optimistic toward a woman’s bent