The Woman Warrior Analysis

The Woman Warrior is a memoir written by Maxine Hong Kingston characterized as a work of nonfiction, however; there are many unclear boundaries between fiction and reality throughout her autobiography. Kingston paints an elaborate picture depicting the émigré experience in America while also discussing the conflict of assimilation a Chinese-American female encounters. The strength of maternal familial patriarchy on the psychological development is depicted throughout The Woman Warrior. Brave Orchid’s talk stories about China both form and deform the young Kingston’s perception of herself as a female.

At the beginning of the first chapter, “No Name Woman”, a major theme is conveyed. The theme of silence is made apparent within the first line of the memoir when Brave Orchid, Kingston’s mother tells her daughter, “You must not tell anyone” (Kingston, 3). There is great irony in this very first line of the author’s memoir as she is telling the entire world about her mother’s best-kept secret. The statement, “You must not tell anyone” (Kingston, 3) alludes to the torment silence causes the narrator in the very last chapter of the novel when she resorts to the extremely disturbing bullying of a fellow student. “I pulled her hair out of her temples, pulled the tears out of her eyes” (Kingston, 178). Lashing out against a female student who would not talk signifies that Kingston still grappled with the negativity associated with female silence. Kingston discovers that this little Chinese-American girl is much like her, physically and socially. This instills a fear in Kingston of becoming just like this silent, no named girl. Ultimately the victim of the bullying episode serves as Kingston’s alter ego.

Kingston’s parents immigrated to Ame...

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...ge 108 of the memoir when Brave Orchid calls Kingston “Little Dog.” Kingston writes, “A weight lifted from me. The quilts must be filling with air. The world is somehow lighter. She has not called me that endearment for years-a name to fool the gods”. (108-109). She goes on to recollect the haunting stories of shrinking babies that her mother had filled her mind with symbolizing Kingston’s inability to forget all that her mother’s talk stories had taught her. Kingston’s “writing marks the transition from the position of separation and alienation to that of accommodation and re-position, initiating a positive self-invention instead of a denial of ethnic origin” (Yuan, 301). Talk stories contain strength, shamefulness, positivity, negativity, pain, and love-all important constructs to the formation of Kingston’s self-identity and perception of herself as a female.