Maxine Kingston's No Name Woman

The subjugation over women has become increasingly rampant in the Chinese setting of Maxine Kingston's "No Name Woman". For thousands of years women have been looked down upon, seen as fragile and rotten. In this short story, the reality of some women's vulnerability is represented through a young Chinese-American girl's supposed aunt. Numerous roles such as inner weakness, culture and personal hardship all unite to create a negative reaction to unwanted oppression. No Name woman gives readers an example of an overly passive woman who ultimately gave in to condemnation. The debilitating circumstances that women are subjected to can eventually produce them to lose hope and cease effort.

The future is all prediction and perception in one's mind, a person can only assume the outcome of their own misfortune. According to No Name woman's own sacrifice, she gave into submissiveness and decided not to foresee what her fate holds. Evidently No Name woman understood the consequences she was already facing, and took the initiative to end the adversity before the situation became more critical. This environment is introduced by Kingston, in the quotation: "At

The intuition of experiencing alienation from family is agonizing and can tear a woman's spirits as a reaction to this form of despotism. The type of persecution No Name woman could have experienced is explained in Maxine Kingston's statement: " On nights when my mother and father talked about their life back home, sometimes they mentioned the "outcast table" whose business they still seemed to be settling, their voices tight. In a communal tradition, where food is precious, the powerful older people made wrongdoers eat alone" (pg.386). The clear thought of what virtuous conformity No Name woman's family believed in was her restrain from continuing. To be ostracized from society because of her appointed sin is reason enough to surrender