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Silence In The Woman Warrior

485 Words2 Pages

In The Woman Warrior, Kingston describes how she overcame a period of silence and low self-esteem in order to illustrate how personal motivation is of greater importance than societal boundaries. Beginning in kindergarten, Kingston went through a period of silence in order to conform to the female peers in America. Societal oppression is the cause of the silence according to Kingston. Kingston fears of not being accepted by her peers as well as deportation back to China, and thus she is silenced. Kingston recalls the manner in which the silence hindered her everyday life in her description of the silence, "When I went to kindergarten and had to speak English for the first time, I became silent. A dumbness––a shame––still cracks my voice in …show more content…

Kingston also stated that her silence may have been caused by fear of deportation and thus she also obtained a 0 IQ as well as drew black paint over all of her artwork. Societal oppression caused her voice to "crack in two" and turn her voice into a cacophony. Kingston desires to speak and makes a list of actions Kingston has done that her mother wouldn't approve of yet has trouble saying anything. Kingston finally has had enough and her intrinsic motivation to speak influences her behavior more than the imposed silence. Kingston describes her will to speak leading to her behavior in the following, "Ha! You can't stop me from talking. You tried to cut off my tongue, but it didn't work.' So I told the hardest ten or twelve things on my list all in one outburst" (Kingston 202). This quote displays how Kingston overcame her silence and cracked voice. Kingston stood up to societal boundaries and put her silence to rest. Kingston goes as far as challenging her mother's previous behavior of cutting her frenum. American femininity would classify this behavior as despicable but this is a big step in Kingston using her

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