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The Woman Warrior Sparknotes

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The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston is a memoir filled with folklore and imagination, that takes the reader on a journey through growing up as a Chinese-American woman navigating the conflicting worlds. This journey is told through the young daughter's naive understanding of her mother's descriptive talk stories. The first chapter “No-Name Woman” is an excruciating tale of how the father’s sister was exiled from the family, killed her assumed daughter, and committed suicide for adultery. This scary tale was told to women of the family once they started menstruating and felt to me like a tactic to shame rather than educate the young girls This story, like the others, was filled with connotations that teach shame, what’s to be kept unspoken, …show more content…

This chapter emphasized the expectations, roles, and values placed on women. While also showcasing the complete contrast in the way men were valued. In Chapter 3, "Shaman", Kingston heavily describes the confusion she felt surrounding her parents. This is told through the talk story of her mother's time at To Keung School of Midwifery. Contrasts between the Chinese and American culture is showcased in "The Western Palace." Told through the story of two sisters reuniting, Moon Orchid and Brave Orchid. This chapter also has underlying messages of shame and misogyny. For me personally, the last chapter made all the other talk stories and myths make sense. This is when the story truly clicked for me, and I started to understand the confusing journey of a Chinese-American girl. That’s why for this essay I plan to discuss chapter 5 “A Song for A Barbarian Reed Pipe.” Highlighting the characters battle between Chinese and American culture while bringing forth the mythology Kingston …show more content…

A mole for example is seen as good fortune if it is on the front of one’s head, pulling you forward. But it is seen as a bad omen when on the back of one’s head, pulling them back. Sweeping is an act of moving nature particles around. Within Chinese mythology a broom is thought to carry spirits inside of it. Thus, sweeping under one’s feet is seen as extremely bad luck. The last nature myth I spotted in the text has to do with an eclipse. In Chinese eclipse stands for “frog-swallowing-the-moon”. The mother of the family makes everyone slam pots, pans, and lids together to keep the moon from being swallowed by its shadow. Kingston used the eclipse mythology to show the daughters struggle to conceptualize Chinese and American cultures. By describing how the daughter used critical thinking to disband her mother's

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1186 Words | 5 Pages

``The woman warrior`` written by Maxine Hong Kingston is a collection of memoirs. It has a hybrid form: it is a myth, fiction, as well as autobiography. ``The woman warrior`` is a book about finding and discovering yourself in the circumstances of a Chinese family and an American upbringing, always fluctuating between the two worlds, wondering about your true self. In ``A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe`` a very important theme is the Identity Plot.

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1294 Words | 6 Pages

In these novels it is clearly seen that this form of writing is important in retaining and embracing a person’s and or a group’s cultural Identity. This paper is going to focus on the importance of talk-story. Maxine Hong Kingston uses talk-story to tell the stories of her childhood in The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. In using this form Kingston learns how to retain the customs of The Old China ways that her parents, especially her mother tells her and her siblings about. Kingston having been born in

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1688 Words | 7 Pages

Canada Cunningham Manfredo Grellert March 24, 2023 Literature The Identification Figurative language from immigrant parents can develop feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, and worthlessness for a first-generation American, raising concerns about fractured self identity in expectations of being the idealized child of immigrant parents. The Woman Warrior, by first-generation Chinese-American Maxine Hong Kingston, is a book that blends autobiographies with old Chinese folk tales. Brave Orchid, Maxines overbearing mother, used words in a way that deviated from traditional meanings to convey a complicated meaning. The use of this language was Orchids way to refer to a particular concept without actually saying

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637 Words | 3 Pages

Analytical Summary 2 The Amazons of Dahomey were an all-female military regiment in West Africa who played a crucial role in defense of the kingdom of Dahomey, which is now present-day Benin. Their story was first introduced to the Western world in the 19th century by European explorers and missionaries who had encountered them during their travels. However, these accounts were often exaggerated and distorted, portraying the Amazons as bloodthirsty savages. In "Amazons of Black Sparta: The Women Warriors of Dahomey", author Stanley B. Alpern seeks to provide a more accurate and nuanced portrayal of the Dahomean Amazons, drawing on historical records and anthropological research.

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306 Words | 2 Pages

The mythical language and aspects used by Kingston allowed me to understand her reality; I was going through her journey WITH her as opposed to just reading the text. Kingston’s role as Fa Mu Lan challenged the Chinese culture. So far in The Woman Warrior: Memoirs

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2869 Words | 12 Pages

In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston seemingly creates a theatrical performance where Kingston engages in swordfights against the socio-cultural norms that seek to define the construction of her own identity. The Woman Warrior presents many unique literary devices and motifs that seemingly create a theatrical performance, although the curtain will never rise, and the audience must watch the performance from behind a curtain. The many unique literary devices provide many important features of the text that seek to define Kingston’s overall feelings without lifting the thin veneer Kingston has strategically placed. Kingston employs a talk-story narrative as a very important narrative device throughout the text.

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1071 Words | 5 Pages

Analyzing Rhetorical Techniques: "No Name Woman" In her essay "No Name Woman," Maxine Hong Kingston investigates how gender impacts every element of a person's existence in Chinese society. The typical perspective of women's roles in Chinese culture. Through a fictitious affiliation with the female warrior, she shows the poverty and suffering of Chinatown, the entrenched sexism and racism, and the spiritual sorrow of cultural transition under challenging situations. Kingston uses the story of a lady hanged for adultery to illustrate the ugliness and corruption of the culture.

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365 Words | 2 Pages

In The Woman Warrior, Kingston develops the story of her mother cutting her tongue to silence her, in order to show the damaging effects silence has on Chinese-American girls. As Kingston grows up, her mother tells her stories to teach her lessons but only includes the details she thinks are necessary. The minimal detail provided creates the idea the stories are not entirely true. Kingston has known the story of her mother cutting her tongue for as long as she can remember, but every time she asks her mother why she cut her tongue, she gives her a different excuse.

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124 Words | 1 Pages

Some examples would be a black cat crossing in front of you would be bad luck, although nobody has an actual answer to if that is true or not it would be considered a superstition.

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433 Words | 2 Pages

Maxine Hong Kingston's use of talk stories in The Woman Warrior emphasizes that individuals will find a more fulfilling life if they defy the traditional gender norms place on them by society. While contemplating beauty standards in Chinese society in “No Name Woman” Maxine Kingston thinks, “Sister used to sit on their beds and cry together… as their mothers or their slaves removed the bandages for a few minutes each night and let the blood gush back into their veins” (9). From a young age girls are expected to be binding their feet and are told that it is to look beautiful, but in reality that is not why. When a womans feet are bound they are restrained and silenced. These girls could be free and happy but they are restrained by men through this binding.

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863 Words | 4 Pages

While Kingston is evidently affected by her mother’s talk-stories, she does not know what to believe. She struggles to find a sense of home as she has never been to China and America is filled with ghosts, the foreign and unknown. Brave Orchid faces a similar problem in which America is alien but China is far away and inaccessible. “Shaman” illustrates that hard work pays off in China but does not give way to progress in the United States, at least for Brave Orchid. While the Kingston’s mother was able to become a doctor

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101 Words | 1 Pages

The Woman Warrior, Memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts, explores Kingston’s identify formation in relation to her mother and female relatives. Kingston uses the first person to narrate five distinct short stories. Each of them contains a central female character. The unique feature of this book is the rearrangement of the traditional Chinese myths, legend of Fa Mu Lan and Ts’ai Yen. The combination of fantasy and reality is closely intertwined in the stories.

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899 Words | 4 Pages

My choice was to creating a poem that reflects the themes of "Just Mercy" was my choice. The title of the poem is "The Weight of Justice," which describes the emotional and mental burden that one faces when seeking justice in an unjust world. This poem is written in free verse and consists of four stanzas, each conveying a different emotion and idea. The title of the poem serves as a fitting representation of its content and message. Through this poem, I aimed to highlight the struggles of those who fight for justice in an unfair system and the emotional toll it takes on them.

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915 Words | 4 Pages

In the essay “The No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston, the story of living in a traditionally male-dominated Chinese society with a very dysfunctional family structure is told. The villages would look upon the men as useful, and women as useless to their society. Kingston, the main character, learns this first hand from how her aunt was treated. Kingston’s aunt, The No Name Woman, is victimized by a male-dominated society by being shunned for an illegitimate child. As a woman, the odds were automatically against you in their society.

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826 Words | 4 Pages

This novel is also autobiographical. Throughout history, women have been locked in a struggle to free themselves from the borderline that separates and differentiate themselves from men. In many circles, it is agreed that the battleground for this struggle and fight exists in literature. In a

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