Student Question
In The Woman Warrior, how does Maxine Hong Kingston establish her personal identity?
Quick answer:
Maxine Hong Kingston establishes her personal identity by navigating the cultural tensions between her Chinese and American heritage. She experiences key milestones like her silent early school years, confronting gender biases, understanding her mother's unfulfilled aspirations, and expressing her anger. Through storytelling and reconciling cultural contradictions, Kingston ultimately finds peace in her dual identity. Her memoir addresses themes of silence and speech, reflecting her journey towards self-understanding and cultural integration.
As explained in http://www.enotes.com/woman-warrior/themes, The Woman Warrior recounts five different milestones that contribute to Maxine Hong Kingston's growth as a person and the development of her identity.
First, in her early elementary-school years, Kingston does not speak. Her withdrawal shows how torn she is between the two cultures in her life (Chinese and American). She embraces neither language.
Secondly, Kingston begins to notice the sexual double standard in her family. The boys are treated as more special and lavished with more praise than the girls. Kingston wants to transcend the sexism of her culture and become a "woman warrior."
Third, Kingston comes to terms with her own mother's unfulfilled longings. In China, she was a doctor but cannot practice medicine in America. She instead takes on the more traditional role of wife and mother.
Fourth, Kingston finds her anger. She attacks a quiet Chinese girl (who reminds her of herself) and...
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heatedly confronts her mother about her storytelling.
Finally, Kingston begins to reconcile all the contradictory elements of her life. She is at peace with being both Chinese and American, and even at peace with her mother.
How did Maxine Hong Kingston's life influence her book The Woman Warrior?
In The Woman Warrior, Kingston explores the disconnect that she felt growing up with both her Chinese and American cultures. She was raised in Stockton, California, where her father relocated after losing his business in New York. Shortly after, Kingston's mother left China and joined the father. In California, the father got back into the laundry business, and they settled to raise their family. Kingston's father did not like to talk about the past in China, preferring to look ahead to the future. Kingston's mother, on the other hand, often told her daughter stories and myths about China. Kingston says throughout The Woman Warrior that she was often confused by these stories because they often changed perspective and did not give clear details of events that must have occurred. Her mother did not try to fix these stories and simply stated that this is how memory works. In her memoir, Kingston tries to reconcile these stories and often ends up "filling in the blanks" to create meaning for herself.
As a child, Kingston did not know how to function in her cultural divide--she did not speak English until she went to school, and while at school she started to hate other children who were silent and appeared as stereotypical Chinese children. In sixth grade, she bullied another girl in her class whom she thought should speak up for herself, and Kingston ended up suffering a breakdown after the incident that kept her out of school for over a year. Thus, the tension between silence and speech is also prevalent in Kingston's story.