Silence and Secrecy in “No Name Woman” “No Name Woman” by Kingston opens with the phrase “You must not tell anyone” which shows that whatever the narrator has to say is a secret and the reader must remain silent about it (3). The fact that the narrator is telling this story when they were supposed to keep it a secret and never speak of it is hypocritical because she warned he reader to never speak of it. The Chinese culture frowns upon he telling of this story because it is involves adultery. Since the narrator was the daughter of immigrants and not directly from China, she disobeys her mother’s commands because secrecy is not as respected in America as it is in China. The narrator of the story holds a hybrid position in the storyline. Although she is of Chinese descent, she is the daughter of immigrants and was likely born in America. The Chinese culture values silence and secrecy but American culture does not value it as much. Since the narrator was no born in China, she can get away with telling the reader the story, but is in some ways acting as a hypocrite. This is because the …show more content…
One of these is after the raid of the family’s household. At this point, “the family broke their silence and cursed her”(13). The also feared that “death” was “coming”(13). At this point the family yells at the woman “You’ve never been born,” causing no one to speak of her again (14). The secrecy in the story functions as a conflict. Everyone had to forget the woman who committed adultery, and try his or her best to never speak of her again. Some individuals, such as the narrator and her mother, broke this silence, which also causes conflict in the story. If the narrator’s father knew that they had spoken of his sister or even mentioned her name, he would have been livid. Silence is a key aspect of this narrative and it is important that the family keep this silence in order to respect the Chinese
Imagination is a quality that everyone has, but only some are capable of using. Maxine Hong Kingston wrote “No Name Woman” using a great deal of her imagination. She uses this imagination to give a story to a person whose name has been forgotten. A person whose entire life was erased from the family’s history. Her story was not written to amuse or entertain, but rather to share her aunts’ story, a story that no one else would ever share. The use of imagination in Kingston’s creative nonfiction is the foundation of the story. It fills the gaps of reality while creating a perfect path to show respect to Kingston’s aunt, and simultaneously explains her disagreement with the women in her culture.
The “prodigal” aunt in Maxine Hong Kingston’s essay No Name Woman, was shunned from her family and ultimately ended up taking her life and her bastard child’s, as a result of public shaming. Instead of being heralded as a heroine and champion of women’s rights, the aunt’s legacy is one of shame and embarrassment that has been passed down through generations. While this story’s roots are Chinese, the issue at hand is multi-cultural. Women suffer from gender inequality worldwide.
“Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested our strengths to establish realities”(5). In the book “The Woman Warrior,” Maxine Kingston is most interested in finding out about Chinese culture and history and relating them to her emerging American sense of self. One of the main ways she does so is listening to her mother’s talk-stories about the family’s Chinese past and applying them to her life.
In the story, the narrator is forced to tell her story through a secret correspondence with the reader since her husband forbids her to write and would “meet [her] with heavy opposition” should he find her doing so (390). The woman’s secret correspondence with the reader is yet another example of the limited viewpoint, for no one else is ever around to comment or give their thoughts on what is occurring. The limited perspective the reader sees through her narration plays an essential role in helping the reader understand the theme by showing the woman’s place in the world. At ...
Chinese-Americans authors Amy Tan and Gish Jen have both grappled with the idea of mixed identity in America. For them, a generational problem develops over time, and cultural displacement occurs as family lines expand. While this is not the problem in and of itself, indeed, it is natural for current culture to gain foothold over distant culture, it serves as the backdrop for the disorientation that occurs between generations. In their novels, Tan and Jen pinpoint the cause of this unbalance in the active dismissal of Chinese mothers by their Chinese-American children.
Similarly, Wong also grew up in America with a traditional Chinese mother. In contrast, Wong’s upbringing involves her mother forcing her into attending two different schools. After her American school day, Wong continues on with Chinese school to learn both cultures. Her mother felt it was her duty to “[. . .] learn the language of [her] heritage” (Wong 144). This puts a burden on Wong as she starts to despise the Chinese culture.
...in her essay “No Name Woman”. The Chinese tradition of story telling is kept by Kingston in her books. Becoming Americanized allowed these women the freedom to show their rebellious side and make their own choices. Rebelling against the ideals of their culture but at the same time preserving some of the heritage they grew up with. Both woman overcame many obstacles and broke free of old cultural ways which allowed them an identity in a new culture. But most importantly they were able to find identity while preserving cultural heritage.
Although she got pregnant by someone other than her husband they did not look at the good and joyful moments the child could bring. Having a baby can be stressful, especially being that the village was not doing so great. The baby could have brought guilt, anger, depression, and loneliness to the aunt, family, and village lifestyle because having a baby from someone other than your husband was a disgrace to the village, based on the orientalism of women. Society expected the women to do certain things in the village and to behave a particular way. The author suggests that if her aunt got raped and the rapist was not different from her husband by exploiting "The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband. They both gave orders; she followed. ‘If you tell your family, I 'll beat you. I 'll kill you. Be, here again, next week." In her first version of the story, she says her aunt was a rape victim because "women in the old China did not choose with who they had sex with." She vilifies not only the rapist but all the village men because, she asserts, they victimized women as a rule. The Chinese culture erred the aunt because of her keeping silent, but her fear had to constant and inescapable. This made matters worse because the village was very small and the rapist could have been someone who the aunt dealt with on a daily basis. Maxine suggests that "he may have been a vendor
Culture shapes the identity of an individual. Maxine Hong Kingston, growing a Chinese American, wavering between the Chinese customs and traditions that shape her identity and her liberal American culture. In her essay, “No Name Woman,” she learns from her mother about her aunt who killed herself by jumping into the family well. Another man impregnated Kingston’s aunt since her husband lived away. Women in the Chinese society were looked at as fragile and submissive, devoid of their emotions and thoughts. The men were the leaders of the house and the society. Having female children was shameful if a male child has not been born already. Women’s duties were to bear children and take care of the household. The aunt, being part of such a conservative society committed such a valiant act, which is greatly admired by Kingston.
Throughout the years poverty has played an important role in changing traditions and cultures. Poverty has changed the role of women and their ways of thinking. In “No Name Woman”, Maxine Hong Kingston showed an example of how poverty changed the responsibilities of women in a small village in China. According to the narrator’s mother, the women in this Chinese village, during the twentieth century, were to get married for one night and then all the men leave to America, to work there and send money home. The need for money gave women no choice but to obey. They did not choose whether they want their men to leave them or not. They were not asked if they wanted to get married or not. Because women could not go through the pain of hunger, coldness or traveling to a new country, they were viewed as weak creatures, which did nothing in life but following orders. No Name Woman tried to change how women are being viewed, but in fact she was not strong enough to change the village’s traditions. No Name Woman’s fear from the people paralyzed her thoughts and made her believe that she will never get a second chance. No Name Woman was irresponsible she ran away from her duty towards her family and her child. No Name Woman thought that by killing herself she is punishing the villagers and her family for treating her badly, but in fact she was punishing herself.
Kingston uses the story of her aunt to show the gender roles in China. Women had to take and respect gender roles that they were given. Women roles they had to follow were getting married, obey men, be a mother, and provide food. Women had to get married. Kingston states, “When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband…she would be the first wife, an advantage secure now” (623). This quote shows how women had to get married, which is a role women in China had to follow. Moreover, marriage is a very important step in women lives. The marriage of a couple in the village where Kingston’s aunt lived was very important because any thing an individual would do would affect the village and create social disorder. Men dominated women physically and mentally. In paragraph eighteen, “they both gav...
The patriarchal repression of Chinese women is illustrated by Kingston's story of No Name Woman, whose adulterous pregnancy is punished when the villagers raid the family home. Cast out by her humiliated family, she births the baby and then drowns herself and her child. Her family exile her from memory by acting as if "she had never been born" (3) -- indeed, when the narrator's mother tells the story, she prefaces it with a strict injunction to secrecy so as not to upset the narrator's father, who "denies her" (3). By denying No Name Woman a name and place in history, leaving her "forever hungry," (16) the patriarchy exerts the ultimate repression in its attempt to banish the transgressor from history. Yet her ghost continues to exist in a liminal space, remaining on the fringes of memory as a cautionary tale passed down by women, but is denied full existence by the men who "do not want to hear her name" (15).
In Maxine Hong Kingston story, “No Name Woman,” the author told a story of her aunt who was punished for committing adultery and died in order to express her thought and spirit of revolt of the patriarchal oppression in the old Chinese society. My essay will analyze the rhetoric and the technique of using different narrators to represent the article and expound the significance of using those methods in the article.
This story is an allegory of life for many Chinese Americans. Many came to America for the opportunity to lead a better life. Entrepreneurship is a big part of that American dream. The Changs’ owning a pancake house represents so many of the Chinese people that own their own restaurants upon coming to America. Mr. Chang’s hesitance to Americanize and his idea that “to embrace what he embraced was love” also represents the views of many Chinese immigrants. Jen’s own parents maintained some of their own ideas of how she should live her life. They didn’t believe that writing was an honorable thing for a woman to do and didn’t support her in her decision until her picture and story was run on the front page of a Chinese newspaper and “their people” accepted it.
Historically, women are often portrayed as being weaker or even inferior to men. This is shown by the belief throughout early history that women weren’t as intelligent. A real world example would be how women were unable to vote until the 20th century. In the works “No One’s a Mystery” by Elizabeth Tallent, “The hills like white elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, and “Where are you going, where have you been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, an older man takes advantage of an innocent younger woman. The women lack worldly experience and see of the world through a lense of ignorance allowing them only to see what they hold most dear to their hearts, such as their relationships with an older man or even the family they’ve pushed away.