The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

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The Woman Warrior is a compelling novel written by Maxine Hong Kingston. The novel won National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction after receiving a great deal of praise from critics. In her novel, Kingston utilizes various literary elements to reveal the theme. Through the use of conflict, symbolism, and characterization, the message behind the theme becomes prominent to readers. The use of conflict gives readers a vivid screening of the role women played in the Chinese society. The symbols that are portrayed in novel, make the message of the theme more evident to readers. Through characterization, Kingston is cluing readers in on how they could defy stereotypes. Kingston weaves all these elements together to develop a well-written story. The theme of the novel that women could rise above the inferior position, dictated by the male-dominant society around them, is shown through the use of literary elements such as conflict, symbolism, and characterization.
The use of conflict in the story assists readers in understanding the theme of the overall story. The author used “talk-stories” that her mother had told her to show the conflicts women had to endure in China. The first talk-story that was told to the narrator is that of her aunt, No-Name Woman. Her mother stressed on the fact that the story must be kept a secret because her aunt is suppose to be unmentioned, “as if she had never been born” (3). Her aunt committed adultery while her husband was in America and the villagers reacted to this in a cruel manner. “The villagers punished her for acting as if she could have a private life, secret and apart from them” (13). The aunt was simply trying to step out of the pigeonhole that the Chinese society has placed women in. The ...

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...er novel. She does so by using numerous amounts of literary elements. Some of the elements that are incorporated in her story include the use of conflict, symbolism, and characterization. . The use of conflict showed the harsh reality of what women had to endure in the Chinese society. Placing various symbols in the novel allowed the reader to personalize the message of the theme, by interpreting the symbols through their own understanding. Characterization presented the characteristics that one must obtain in order to transform into a woman warrior. The use of these elements makes her theme of redefining female stereotypes exceedingly apparent to readers.

Works Cited
Foster, Thomas. How to read Literature Like a Professor. New York: HarperCollins Publishers
Inc., 2003. Print.
Kingston, Maxine. The Woman Warrior. New York: Random House Inc., 1989. Print

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