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Artificial Intelligence In Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior

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Artificial intelligence represents the two qualities that distinguish man from machine: emotional realism and relatability. However, the closest modern society has come to recreating the human form has been through literature; a book is nothing without syntax and diction, but it is meaningless without a developed character. In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston develops her character through the use of personal commentary, self-perceptions, and interaction with a silent Chinese student. Kingston's character is expanded through the use of personal commentary. Her "stream of consciousness" reveals her inner conflict over self-identification, as shown by a comparison between Chinese and American values (Macauley and Lanning 108). Kingston has trouble relating to the concept of "I" in the English language since it only has "three strokes" in comparison to the "seven intricacies" of "I" in Chinese …show more content…

The "moral paradoxes" and contradictions as to the value of women in society force Kingston to make independent assessments as to what the true limitations, if any, women face (Macauley and Lanning 251). She must decide whether "girls are maggots in the rice" who have less status than geese, or if they have the responsibility to become more than a "wife and a slave" (Kingston 43, 20). This need to discover boundaries is rooted in her longing for normalcy; she feels a shame in being "different from other people" (Kingston 10). This pressure to conform, yet inability to do so, is expressed through the "symbolic meaning... of events" (Macauley and Lanning 253). Kingston internalizes at a young age that she is "ugly and clumsy" which forces her to redefine her concepts of beauty to include strength and independence, qualities she may not have acquired without "such [deep] unhappiness" in her appearance (Kingston 201; Macauley and Lanning

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