Woman Warrior Thesis

Noah Yuen

Vuong

AmerLitH, Per.5

8 February, 2017

Voiceless

“Walking erect (knees straight, toes pointed forward, not pigeon-toed, which is Chinese-feminine) and speaking in an inaudible voice, I have tried to turn myself American-feminine,” (11) recounts Maxine, the protagonist of Woman Warrior, a memoir written by author Maxine Hong Kingston. Stuck between two worlds, “Chinese-feminine” girls such as Maxine must sacrifice their chinese heritage in order to become “American feminine,” which withholds Chinese values. Placed in a world that stresses the importance of self-expression and individuality when discovering one’s purpose, Kingston presents the struggle of finding selfhood that Maxine faces as she encounters colliding cultures and varying

societal norms: China; introversion and self-sacrifice, America; self-expression and ambition.
Kingston describes the two colliding cultures that bind Maxine by highlighting the differences between her current world which values ambition and self-determination and her past world that encourages introversion and obedience, especially for women.

At a young age, Maxine has her frenum sliced from her tongue by her mother in order to prevent her from being tongue-tied, and enabling her to speak fluently in multiple languages. However, Maxine thinks her mother committed this, as seen from her perspective, terrible act because , “The Chinese say ‘a ready tongue is an evil’”(164). When someone or something is “ready,” they are prepared and able to carry out a task. In Maxine’s past world, a “ready tongue” means something or someone is ready to comply to the demands of another. As a woman from mainland China, Maxine is expected to obey the values of other Chinese women: introversion and compliance, without question. The “ready tongue” symbolizes Maxine’s ability to speak, or lack thereof, as she is reluctant to speak in school and express her feelings to her family. The ready tongue is described as “an evil,” which exemplifies the resentment Chinese people feel towards those who are ready to speak. Maxine’s mother, who grew up with traditional Chinese values, finds it fitting to limit Maxine’s ability to speak, which proves disastrous when the family ventures to the United States where Maxine struggles to find a sense of self in an environment that encourages

self-determination and extroversion. In the final chapter of the story, Maxine recounts her admiration for the black students because “they talked the loudest and talked to me as if I were a daring talker too” (166). “Loud” signifies someone or something speaking or culminating sound at a high volume. The black students, who most likely have lived in the United States for most of their lives, “talked the loudest,” contrasting the expectations of Chinese culture. Maxine admires this part of American culture because she has never been one to “[talk] the loudest.” In fact, in China, Maxine spoke so little that her school held her back for several years. Maxine appreciates that the american students interacted with her as if she was a “daring talker,” meaning someone who is overly outgoing and expressive when it comes to speaking. Maxine envies these qualities of the American students, due to her partial allegiance to her Chinese heritage, and is stuck between which values to choose. Entangled in the colliding cultures of China and America, Maxine first encounters the ethics of her past and present worlds.
Fixed between the ethics of China and America, Kingston illustrates Maxine’s predicament of attempting to transition to American values of self-voice and individuality, while being held back by her family’s traditional Chinese values.

When Maxine moves to America, she realizes that her old expectations which had been acceptable in China were prohibiting her success in America. She realizes her lack of identity in either world “when [she] found out [she] had to talk that school became a misery, that the silence became a misery” (166). “[Have] to” indicates that an action is mandatory. Now in America, Maxine “had to talk,” signifying that participation is a requirement in class, contrary to that of Chinese schools where utter silence is an expectation. This American belief that opposed her Chinese values made learning “a misery” for Maxine. “Misery” symbolizes a feeling of great discomfort, which accurately captures Maxine’s feeling while being torn between two worlds. Rather than either assimilating to America or maintaining her Chinese traditions, she is dragged back and forth. Her silence, which has now become a burden for Maxine after withholding her thoughts for many years, has now “[become] a misery. She is dying to speak up, but her the opposing values of her current and past world are tearing her apart at the seams. Maxine’s failed attempts to fit into her new world slowly deteriorates her mindset, intensifying her struggle to find a place in either of her two worlds.

Asian-Americans such as Maxine not only experience the inherent mental hardships, but also, as stated in Susan Cain’s “Quiet”, “the cost of failing to fit in is social unease…they pay the price with their paycheck” (Cain 194). Asian-Americans pay internally with “social unease” as well as physically with money, reinforcing Maxine’s struggle in her two colliding worlds.
Having highlighted Maxine’s struggle, Kingston illustrates Maxine’s violent response to the pain she has experienced in order to make peace between the two cultures, where she finally speaks her mind and describes her stance between the two cultures. When attempting to articulate a list of thoughts she has been holding in for some time to her Mother, she is rejected, which enrages Maxine to the point when, “[Maxine’s] whole family was eating dinner(...) crowded around a little round table, [her] throat burst open” (201). For something to “burst,” the object must be filled to the point where its maximum capacity has been exceeded and the substance within spills out violently. Kingston’s usage of the term indicates that Maxine has been withholding an overwhelming amount of thoughts she has wished to express for a while, and now all the anger and insecurity is spilling over in the form of shouting. The author describes Maxine’s generally sidelined, quiet personality, which contrasts this instance where Maxine loudly erupts in front of her mother. Here she decides to break apart from her traditional chinese values of silence and self-sacrifice and displays a characteristic of an American: Self-determination. This is a clear representation of Maxine’s development as an individual, as she is shown to be fully comfortable with her two colliding cultures when expressing herself to help form her own identity.
To conclude Maxine’s venture through conflicting cultures, Kingston illustrates that those who seek selfhood must sacrifice bits of their identities in order to fully conform to the two cultures that originally caused the struggle. At the end of the story, Kingston tells the tale of a Chinese poet named Ts’ai Yen, that brought songs back to China after being kidnapped by savages. Maxine writes Ts’ai Yen “brought her songs back from the savage lands that Chinese [now] sing to their own instruments. It translated well” (209). To “translate” is to manipulate a text or work to improve its comprehensibility across multiple languages or people. Both Maxine and Ts’ai Yen struggle to transition between conflicting cultures and form identities that would match either world. The songs that Yen brings back to her homeland are easily translated by her new Chinese culture. Maxine eventually can completely “translate” her identity to both American and Chinese culture after her outburst around the family dinner table. The stories of Maxine and Yen draw interesting parallels as Maxine grapples with her transition at first, but is relieved through self-expression, and Yen, with her singing, carves her own path. Through her description of Maxine finally finding peace in her struggle of living between two varying cultures, Kingston proves that one must sacrifice some parts of their identity in order to gain others.
Kingston effectively illustrates Maxine’s development from a young, introverted girl who faces the struggle of assimilating into two dissimilar cultures, to a rebellious young woman who discovers her identity through aggressive self-expression. Despite her mother’s allegiance to Chinese traditions, Maxine eventually finds her identity when she sacrifices part of her Chinese values through a long-awaited outburst, showing that one must surrender the traditions of one culture in order to discover their selfhood when caught between two colliding worlds.