The Woman Warrior

A mother in today’s society sole purpose is to be there for her kids. She is supposed to teach them what is wrong from right, and also cater to her children’s needs. However, the actions of mothers worldwide are criticized due to society not fully understanding the decisions the parents have made on behalf of their children. In Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, the mother-daughter relationship is not an understanding one. This is because the daughter was raised in America while the mother was raised in China. They grew up with two different perspectives of the norm, and it impacted their relationship drastically. Out of their relationship, however, the daughter picked up on her mother’s talent of telling stories. In Dorothy Allison’s

Allison grew up in a household were she was surrounded by men. When Bone would go over to her aunts one thing that stuck in her head was that women where “born to mother, nurse, and clean up after the men” and “men could do anything…no matter how violent or mistaken” (Allison 23). This had an influence on how she perceived her mother. Allison puts this in the novel to give the readers a sense of the environment Bone and Anney grew up in. The stress on what women should do is torn by men who affect Bone’s and Anney’s mother-daughter relationship. Instead of nursing and cleaning up after her daughter, Anney does those things for Daddy Glen more. When Anney first found out that her daughter was getting beat by Daddy Glen by the school nurse, she left the school nurse in haste. Bone describes her mother’s lips as “swollen where she had bitten them” (116). The mother-daughter relationship is shown here because Bone’s mother is torn. She loves and cares for her daughter, but always finds herself drawn back Daddy Glen and defending him. Bone knows that her mother is torn between the two, because while she says she will always be there for her she senses the passion she had for Daddy Glen. Later on Anney moved back in with Daddy Glen. Bone was back in the very situation she was in before with Daddy Glen beating her. Even though Bone was being abused by physically mentally and emotionally she still cared what her mother thought. A part of her felt entitled to making sure her mother was happy. Bone states, “I would work as hard as he did to make sure she never knew” (118). This is not only a sign of abuse in rape victims this is also a sign of compassion. She shows understanding for the situation her mother is up against even if she is so young and despicable things are being done to her when she is just a