1. Why does Kingston begin The Woman Warrior with her mother’s admonishment, “You must not tell anyone”? What effect does Kingston establish with this ironic statement? 2. The mother-daughter relationship in The Woman Warrior has been described as “bittersweet.” To what extent do you agree with this view? How would […]
Read more Study Help Essay QuestionsStudy Help Full Glossary for The Woman Warrior
abacus a mathematical device used to solve addition and subtraction problems; invented in China in the twelfth century, the abacus is made up of beads strung on rods in units of ten. acrid foul-smelling. adamantine chin a strong-looking chin. agoraphobia a fear of open spaces or public places. almanac typically, […]
Read more Study Help Full Glossary for The Woman WarriorCritical Essays The Woman Warrior in the Chinese Literary Context
In The Woman Warrior, Kingston addresses many of the same themes and concerns found in modern and traditional Chinese literature. Comparing Kingston’s work to other Chinese literary texts can enhance our understanding of her memoir. In addition to Ts’ai Yen, a figure from traditional Chinese literature and culture who plays […]
Read more Critical Essays The Woman Warrior in the Chinese Literary ContextCritical Essays The Woman Warrior in its Historical Context
In many ways, The Woman Warrior can best be understood in its historical context, particularly by three political incidents that occurred in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the Chinese May Fourth Movement of 1919, the 1949 Communist takeover of China, and the Chinese Exclusion Act passed by the United States […]
Read more Critical Essays The Woman Warrior in its Historical ContextCritical Essays The Theme of the Voiceless Woman in The Woman Warrior
Fundamental to The Woman Warrior is the theme of finding one’s own, personal voice. Interspersed throughout the memoir’s five chapters are numerous references to this physical and emotional struggle. For the many women who are voiceless, Kingston supplies the language these silent women need if they are to discover viable, […]
Read more Critical Essays The Theme of the Voiceless Woman in The Woman WarriorMaxine Hong Kingston Biography
Maxine Hong Kingston, an eminent memoirist and a celebrated Chinese-American autobiographer, is best known for The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976) and its companion volume, China Men (1980). The Woman Warrior won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976 for non-fiction, and China Men was […]
Read more Maxine Hong Kingston BiographySummary and Analysis A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe
In this final chapter of The Woman Warrior, Kingston discusses further the difficulties she experienced growing up as a Chinese-American female. Greatest among these challenges was learning to speak English to non-Chinese people, while struggling to confront traditional Chinese culture, represented by her mother, which inhibited her efforts to integrate […]
Read more Summary and Analysis A Song for a Barbarian Reed PipeSummary and Analysis At the Western Palace
Kingston, who in “Shaman” narrated the personal talk-story of her mother, Brave Orchid, now relates the failed assimilation into American culture of Brave Orchid’s younger sister, Moon Orchid, whose inability to adapt to a new, American way of life destines her first to insanity and then to death. Estranged from […]
Read more Summary and Analysis At the Western PalaceSummary and Analysis Shaman
Although “No Name Woman” and “White Tigers” are anthologized more often than the other individual chapters in The Woman Warrior, “Shaman” is arguably the novel’s most pivotal chapter. As the middle chapter in Kingston’s memoir about growing up listening to her mother’s talk-stories, “Shaman” contains Brave Orchid’s personal history, how […]
Read more Summary and Analysis ShamanSummary and Analysis White Tigers
Having reclaimed the discarded memory of her aunt by telling her story in “No Name Woman,” Kingston continues her search for a Chinese-American identity in a more assertive and positive tone in “White Tigers,” which relates the heroic struggle of Fa Mu Lan, one of the women warriors from whom […]
Read more Summary and Analysis White Tigers