The Significance Of Ghosts In Maxine Kingston's Woman Warrior

The word “ghost,” is officially defined by Webster’s Dictionary as, “the soul of a dead person thought of as living in an unseen world or as appearing to living people,” but has been know to hold countless other meanings throughout history. In Maxine Kingston’s memoir, Woman Warrior, ghosts are a reoccurring theme and are represented in many different ways, both through the living and the dead. To Kingston, disembodied spirits, forgotten lovers, outcasts, deceased family members, and even things she merely does not understand are some of the many things that have earned the name “ghost.” “ The word “ghost” itself is mentioned time and time again, throughout Woman Warrior and with each mention, a new meaning is given to the word. Because of

this, Kingston “complicates any simplistic definitions of “ghosts,” (she) writes about her own “girlhood among ghosts,” both Chinese and American, and that having ‘been born among ghosts…taught by ghosts… (Kingston finds herself and her siblings) ghostlike’ (213) (Jenkins). Throughout the entirety of her childhood, these “ghosts” of both the living and the dead haunt Kingston, and the only way she can imagine them at peace, is by sharing their stories with her readers. By writing down the chilling tales that haunted her, Kingston becomes a disembodied voice, haunting her readers with the very ghosts that will not leave her be.
Kingston grew up in a world both literally and figuratively filled with ghosts. In an interview, Kingston states, “when I was growing up people around me saw spirits and creatures. It wasn’t just that they brought ghost stories from China but that they saw spirits and magic people in the world around them(Kingston and Angels 1998).” By listening to the first hand experiences her mother faced with these ghosts, Kingston fears the ghostly characters, and is haunted by their stories and images. She feels as though “ghosts are exorcised by writing and translating the past to construct their future” (Lee) so Kingston does the best she can to exorcise the demons that haunt her by ensuring their stories will carry on. By copying these stories onto paper, Kingston is becoming a haunting presence herself and following her readers through the stories told in her memoir. In an excerpt from Woman Warrior, Kingston writes, “’but ghosts can’t just be nightmares,’ a storyteller protested. ‘They come right out into the room…’”(65), and this is exactly what Kingston is doing through her book. Through Woman Warrior, Kingston brings the restless spirits of the ghosts of her past into the homes and minds of everyone who reads her book.
Kingston inscribes her entire range of childhood memories into a book and by doing so, she hopes to not only share these story of ghosts, but also to relieve herself of these very demons she has carried around since childhood. By sharing their pain and sufferings with the world, Kingston is “resuscitating memories” (Jenkins) of long forgotten spirits and allowing their stories to be heard. In an interview, Kingston states that despite her best efforts, “writing does not make ghosts go away entirely. I want to record words for the “ghosts” which are only visions… I want to give them a substance that goes beyond me” ( Kingston and Angels 1998). By writing and re-telling these stories, Kingston is allowing these restless spirit’s stories to stand on their own, as written ghost stories, which shall never be forgotten. This allows these ghosts to haunt her readers forever in the same way these stories and ghosts have followed her around all these years.
Ghosts are said to reside in dimensions where fact cannot be distinguished from fiction, where ideas and stories remain hazy and obscure. This realm is a good analogy to describe Kingston’s memoir, in which she embellishes the truth quite often and writes of experiences from her childhood by drawing solely on memories that grow increasingly hazy as time passes. Kingston writes, “Most ghosts make brief and gauzy appearances that eyewitnesses doubt their own sightings “(Kingston 74). Like a ghost sighting, Kingston’s certainty of the events that actually occurred in her life fade, as the memories grow more distant in time. The image of a ghost is known to symbolize fear, darkness, and confusion in a person’s life, and the elusive nature of the ghosts present throughout Woman Warrior, give the reader a sense that these spirits are extremely powerful entities. Kingston describes her need to be rid of this darkness and ghosts that haunt her through her written words. With the lines, “concrete pours out of my mouth to cover the forests with freeways and sidewalks. Give me plastics, periodical tables, TV dinners with vegetables no more complex than peas mixed with diced carrots. Shine floodlights into dark corners: no ghosts” (156), Kingston expresses her desire to be free of these haunting stories that she has inherited from her mother. She is calling out for a sense of clarity, some logic in her life amongst the stories of the dead, which she is able to achieve by putting these stories on paper. By writing this harrowing memoir and spreading these ghastly, dark tales with others, Kingston is attempting to rid herself of the ghosts that accompany them. By sharing these stories with her readers, she too becomes the very thing she fears the most. In an interview, Kingston reveals that religion is absent in her own child’s life, because “I did not want his childhood to be haunted like mine (Kingston an Angels 1998).” She believes that introducing ideas and stories through texts have the power to haunt the readers; so through her memoir, Kingston becomes the haunter, not the haunt-ee.
In Chinese culture, ghosts are an extremely common theme seen throughout history. Images of these deceased phantoms are very prevalent in Chinese religion, art, stories, and rituals. In The Woman Warrior, Kingston casually states, “In the village structure, spirits shimmered among the living creatures, balanced and held in equilibrium by time and land” (Kingston 12), and describes seeing these apparitions in China as if she were describing a dog walking past her house. These spirits also play an important role in Chinese family dynamics. Kingston writes, “a family must be whole, faithfully keeping the descent life by having sons to feed the old and the dead, who in turn look after the family” (13) with these lines, Kingston in describing a “whole,” traditional Chinese family, and ghosts are as much a part of the immediate family as the living.
One especially present ghost in Kingston’s life and her memoir is her “no named” aunt, who silently haunts Kingston in the most terrifying manor. In an article about Chinese history, Zetlin states, “In post-medieval China… the unsatisfied souls of the dead need to be placated or comforted so that the will stop haunting the living” (Feuchtwang). Because of her aunt’s extremely tragic end, and complete disappearance from the family’s memory, Kingston knows that there is no way her aunt’s spirit is at peace. Even before her aunt kills herself, she is deemed a ghost by her own family. Kingston writes, “the family broke her silence and cursed her. ‘Aiaa, we’re going to die. Death is coming. Death is coming. Look what you’ve done. You’ve killed us. Ghost! Dead ghost! Ghost! You’ve never been born” (15). Decades after her aunt’s desperate suicide, Kingston describes her in death as a lonely, tragic ghost saying:
“My aunt remains forever hungry. Goods are not distributed evenly among the dead. My aunt haunts me- her ghosts drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her, though not origamied into houses and clothes. I do not think she always means me well. I am telling on her, and she was a spite suicide, drowning herself in the drinking water. The Chinese are always very frightened of the drowned one, whose weeping ghost, wet hair hanging and skin bloated, waits silently by the water to pull down a substitute” (16).

Kingston sees her aunt as an outcast in life, and is saddened to know that she remains that way even in death. Kingston imagines her as a lonely and starving spirit, stealing leftover food and gifts left for other ghosts by their loved ones. In order to help her aunt as well as herself be at peace, Kingston shares her aunt’s story with her readers. However, Kingston often worries that she has made her “No-Named Aunt” angry by sharing the humiliation she felt and bringing the dishonor she faced to light again and again with each reader of her book. A common image seen in Chinese, the drowned ghost is said to:
“The Chinese indeed have many ghost stories about the drowned one. The Chinese think the drowned ones died with grievances and anger, which is why the drowned ghosts wait by the water to find a substitute. That is their revenge and their hope of rebirth. If they cannot find a substitute, they remain forever as wandering spirits without receiving spirit money and sacrificial offerings from their live relatives (Lee).”

Aside from her No-Named Aunt, Kingston encounters a wide variety of “ghosts throughout her life, both malevolent and benign, living and dead. In a literary journal, Jenkins argues, “central to articulating her own story, Kingston must decide which ghosts to embrace and which to exorcize. Most significantly, she is haunted by her no name aunt “(Jenkins). She grows up listening to her mother’s stories and becomes so fascinated in them, that she can no longer tell what is real from what she imagined. She becomes so truly horrified at the idea of these ghosts roaming through the night that she begins to blur the line between reality and fiction. “Kingston has to reach deep into the depths of her past in order to discover what is real and what was not. The narrator feels confused. She cannot figure out what is true or what is fantasy in her mother’s stories. She feels isolated among all kinds of ghosts; moreover, she is called Ho Chi Kuei, a kind of ghost herself (Lee).”
The term “ghost” also holds another meaning in Kingston’s complicated, chilling life.

When she moves to America, her mother calls everyone who is not Chinese a “ghost,” and Kingston catches on to the saying. In an article, Lee writes, “refers to the “foreigners: when they live among the whites. Here” ghosts” mean outsiders for the Chinese” (Lee). By moving to America, Kingston views herself as being surrounded by “white ghosts,” or “gwai-lo’s” constantly throughout her everyday life. She views anything she does not quite understand or anything that frightens her as a “ghost” and because of that, all white people become ghosts in her mind. “By calling (white people) and other people of color “ghosts,” Chinese immigrants tried to claim their legitimate statues and to some extent debased the existence of others”(Lee). Through the appointing of all non-Chinese immigrants as “ghosts,” the Chinese are able to unite as living beings in a world full of the dead. They are able to categorize all unfamiliar races and skin colors that they do not understand as one group termed “ghosts.” In one excerpt, Kingston writes, “America has been full of machines and ghosts- Taxi Ghosts, Bus Ghosts, Police Ghosts, Five and Dime Ghosts. Once upon a time the world was so thick with ghosts, I could hardly breathe” (90-91). With this passage, Kingston describes the white Americans as ghosts. Because they are different from her and have different cultures and do not really interact with her, they are automatically deemed ghosts by her mother, and therefore accepted as ghosts to Kingston herself. She is living in a world full of ghosts, and it is absolutely terrifying for her. Although these ghosts are indeed alive, they are every bit as scary to her as the dead ones that haunt her through her mother’s stories. In a strange and terrifying new world, Kingston categorizes the things that scare and haunt her, under one word:

“ghost.”
The meaning and importance of the word “ghost” in Woman Warrior changes depending on the person perceiving these ghosts. Kingston realizes that the living can become ghost-like while watching her aunt, Moon Orchid, flow between being surrounded by ghosts in America, to becoming one herself. When Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid go to confront Moon Orchid’s husband, they find that he wants nothing to do with them. To her husband, Moon Orchid is a mere distant memory that has come back to haunt him in his new life. Moon Orchid and Brave Orchid are shocked to discover that, to her husband, they are the ones that have become ghosts from the past. This is a shocking role reversal from Brave Orchid’s once highly elevated position of a shaman, to becoming a ghost herself. Although Kingston does not discuss this tale as much as her no named aunt’s, Moon Orchid’s story haunts her just as much as her. By being completely forgotten, Moon Orchid becomes a ghost-like figure to her husband, and by showing up again in his new life, she is haunting him. In turn, as a result of his rejection, Moon Orchid becomes a literal, living ghost, aimlessly floating through life, but not really present. The memory of Moon Orchid and what she becomes is as horrifying and haunting as any real ghost to Kingston. When Moon Orchid eventually goes mad, Kingston writes, “mad people have only one story that they talk over and over” (184), which is much like a ghost story, being repeated throughout time.
Ultimately, the word “ghost” to Kingston describes the things she most fears in her life and things she does not quite understand. The word, to Kingston, stands for the hollow, haunting feelings she has towards the story of her disgraced Aunt, as well as the confusion and fear she faces by living life in America as a Chinese girl. By listening to her mother, Brave Orchid’s, countless stories of battling ghosts, Kingston only knows to fear these “ghosts” secondhand. Kingston is terrified by all the stories her mother shares with her, and becomes confused by the vast meaning the word “ghost” holds in the Chinese culture as well as American culture. The term ghost is eventually used by Kingston to describe things that range from as terrifying as actual spirits, which she does not understand, to the fear of being forgotten, which is a different kind of fear.
Ghosts are present throughout Chinese culture, American culture, as well as throughout the entirety of Kingston’s memoir Woman Warrior. The spirits seen in Kingston’s writing range from actual deceased apparitions that have not yet moved on to the afterlife, or simply an oppressive race of people that she does not understand and fears. These ghosts can be evil or good, living, like Moon Orchid, or dead like Kingston’s “No-named Aunt.” These ghosts can be male or female, Chinese or American and adult or infant. The word “ghost” holds countless meanings throughout the memoir as well as through many different languages and cultures. By taking her personal memories of the ghosts that haunted her childhood, both the living and the dead, and composing them into stories, Kingston becomes a ghost herself and haunts her readers through her words. The Woman Warrior: A Girlhood Among Ghosts, Kingston is taking the terror and confusion she felt as a child and by sharing it with others, as her mother did for her. By sharing these tragic stories of sadness, confusion, forgotten loved ones, and death, Kingston is able to make sense of these ghosts that haunted her, and maybe allow their misfortunes to haunt others, instead of her.