Kingston Confront Challenges In Suicide's Forgotten Victims And The Woman Warrior

Achieving Confidence:
Keiski and Kingston Confront Challenges

Gina Parducci
EngComp 3
Popham
1/27/2023
From infancy to teenage life, growing up presents plenty of difficulties, confusion, and isolating moments. Figuring out life can seem daunting, and each person must figure out how to fend for themselves. Looking back on ourselves as children, we didn’t realize we had embarked on the journey of life and that the challenges along the way would shape us into who we identify as today. “Suicide’s Forgotten Victims” by Lisa Keiski and The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, the one on death and the other on Chinese culture, both examine alienation with regard to society, authority figures, and self.
Keiski

People surrounding Kingston, including her own Chinese community, suppress her voice: “Sometimes I hated the ghosts for not letting us talk; sometimes I hated the secrecy of the Chinese” (338). Occasionally, Kingston had feelings of disdain towards Americans and her own culture. Kingston feels disregarded some days by both cultures equally. She loathed the prohibitions that left her silenced and voiceless from society. The way she refers to Americans clearly suggests demons and spirits. The haunting of these blank creatures made Kingston feel like she constantly had to defend herself. Kingston feels like she possesses little value due to her part Chinese identity. As a female and a child, the letters she wants to speak lack value and opinion to her own family. Her culture feels hidden and suppressed since it reflects the minority of the area she lives in. She had to stand against all people in her life–Chinese and American communities. Kingston has no unity in her life. Her words meant nothing to both populations as she felt caught in the middle. She could not communicate her language so she avoided it all together. Her sounds, often silenced, left her feeling alone. Kingston practically seemed invisible to Americans and despised having to live so privately. She had to hide the real truth in order to protect herself from her own population and the Americans. Both populations inflicted alienation on Kingston leaving

Keiski reflects, “To get rid of these feelings and find peace with myself, I had to live through them” (96). Keiski had to dig within her mind to reconcile and feel at ease finally with the situation. Functioning after a friend’s attempted suicide negatively affected the spirit of Keiski and she unintentionally ejected herself from the world around her to cope with the trauma. She had to find ways to eradicate the pain and eliminate the hold that her friend’s suicide had on her life. Calming down and staying aware of what happened, Keiski realized she alienated herself from the people around her. The divide between others and herself occurred through the mood and temperament Keiski outwardly gave off. Due to the internal realization she had, Keiski felt compelled to try to decisively regain harmony in her life. Keiski became conscious that a change seemed necessary, so she can live the life she intended to. She fights her internal demons while coping. Moving on does not mean letting go, but finding the positive energy and using that as her drive in life. Keiski seeks contentment and reconciliation of relationships with the people in her life. The disaffection Keiski encounters during this part of her growing up helps her discover balance in her