Maxine Hong Kingston In The Woman Warrior

As Steve Jobs once said, “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” This quote may be relevant to many people in many different ways, but it is extremely relevant to the main character in this novel, Maxine Hong Kingston. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Kingston battles to find her true self while having to live with the stereotypes of being a woman in the Chinese Culture. In the Chinese culture, women are of very little value and are considered little better than slaves; Kingston, however, sees herself as neither valueless nor subservient therefore she rebels against these definitions the Chinese culture has established. She finds her own voice; rather than letting others define her, she decides

Unlike the last chapter, where silence was encouraged, this chapter shared that success is achievable for women, specifically Chinese women. Kingston had also felt a deep connection to Fa Mu Lan. This is a significant part of the novel, as it is the fist time the aspect of “The Woman Warrior” was introduced. Kingston tells the story of the woman warrior as if it was her own childhood. Although Kingston has never actually been to China herself, she paints this fantasy of China in her head. For example, she describes the peaks that are “shaded in pencil” and rocks that look like “charcoal rubbings.” Along with that she imagines herself fighting with a magical "Sky Sword” — not a typical unwieldy sword that would be used in battle, but instead a sword that she controls through a force of her will. Also in her fantasy, she does more than just orders of a male like typical Chinese woman would do, she is a female avenger herself. Having the power to both give and take a life, Kingston is able to maintain both her dignity of womanhood and her responsibilities as a wife and mother; She even carries her baby in a sling under her armor during battle. Not only does Kingston fantasize about being a strong woman, she carries out this role in reality. “I went away to college — Berkley in the sixties —- and I studied, and I marched to change the world, but I did not turn into a boy,” (47); This text shows how Kingston is able to have a voice while still maintaining the female role. Kingston pictures herself as a strong independent Chinese woman, rather than the typical Chinese woman whose only goal in life is to satisfy their husbands needs. She said, “It was said, ‘There is an outward tendency in females,’ which mean that I was getting straight A’s for the good of my future husband’s family, not my own. I did not plan on having a husband,”