The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction
Blurb (on back of book):
A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity. It is a sensitive account of growing up female and Chinese-American in a California laundry.
MY OPINION: ***
I read this book for freshman English over the last four weeks. I was told that this is a book that we will have to be reading again and again in the future for English lit. I can’t imagine having to read through it again and again that many times when the first time was no less than a struggle, to say the least.
This is a memoir told from a woman’s perspective. Maxine Hong Kingston is a Chinese woman living in America after her parents immigrated before she was born, making her not an immigrant and only her family. When first picking up the book, I was under the impression that the author was writing a memoir... about herself. Little did I know that there’s a lot less Maxine Hong Kingston and a lot more Chinese-mythology and Kingston’s-mother-and-other-family.
The main problem with this book for me is that it’s all very confusing and even having finished the book, I still don’t completely understand it. It’s baffling and convoluted and very disorganized. One second we’re talking about Kingston’s life at home and the next we’re talking about Fa Mu Lan and the life that she led in ancient China with a seemingly random old couple. All of this comes out of the middle of nowhere and we don’t get an introduction or any clue whatsoever that we have now transitioned to a different person.
If your teacher has to encourage you to use SPARKNOTES in an English class, where SparkNotes is like the number one thing you shouldn’t use, then you know that this book is different and bound to be rather difficult.
In the first section, “No Name Woman” which is definitely the shortest of the book, we get a lot of insight into what Kingston’s life was like living with her mother. Her mother regales her with “talk-stories” of her aunt who lived back in China and jumped down a well with her illegitimate baby. It’s all a LOT of information being piled on all at once and we already get a feel of what this story is going to be like. We learn how her aunt was treated because of her crime of adultery and Kingston’s mother tells her daughter that she is not to mention this to her father because her aunt is basically non-existent. The family doesn’t acknowledge her because of the shame she brings upon them and her mother is only telling her this story to let her daughter know what life as a woman in China was like and how she should be thankful that she lives in America. Kingston starts imagining possible reasons behind why her aunt did what she did, starting from rape and ending with the giving in to female desires. We see that this whole thing is quite hypothetical and we get a sense that a lot of the book is that way.
The second section, “White Tiger”, we go into this entire myth from ancient China about Fa Mu Lan, The Woman Warrior that Kingston admits to wanting to be. There’s about 25 pages of this, but when reading it in my confused state, it felt endless. I didn’t know what was going on and my book group at school didn’t either. There is a large amount of storytelling that takes place and all of it is told from first-person view, so much so to the point that I thought for a good 20 of those 25 pages that this was still Kingston. However, at the 26 page or so, we revert back to Kingston’s life for around 10 pages and get more insight into how women were treated in Kingston’s time. Quotes are thrown around by men such as “Better to raise geese than girls” that really sickened me and we learn about how girls are a disgrace to a Chinese family. We get more perspective into who Kingston is and how she reacts to these sexist slurs and she wishes to be like Fa Mu Lan, which is now the basis of this book. We learn about how people even in America were both racist and sexist towards Kingston and her family and we get more into the Communist state of China.
In the third section, “Shaman”, we are taken on a journey that focuses solely on Kingston’s mother, who is called Brave Orchid. We learn that Brave Orchid went to college and became a doctor; we realize that Brave Orchid was keen on establishing herself as an independent woman. At her university, we see her fighting off “ghosts” and wowing her fellow peers. The whole ghost scene here baffled me and I am still confused. Was this all made up? Was it a metaphorical ghost, and if so, what did it correspond to in Brave Orchid’s life? I find myself constantly asking myself these questions and finding no answers. We then hear stories about how Brave Orchid buys herself a slave girl for a small amount (maybe even nothing?). Kingston is upset by the fact that her mother complains to her that the slave girl cost her 50 dollars and can do many things while her own daughter cost her 200 dollars for the doctor when she was born and is seemingly useless. Then there’s this whole part about how if you can eat anything, you “win” and it was all quite confusing. Then there is the mention of “Ghosts”, which I finally deducted on being the non-Chinese people that lived around them. Her mother, and Kingston too, seemed to call everyone that wasn’t Chinese a Ghost.
The fourth section, “At the Western Palace”, again focuses on Brave Orchid, this time along with her younger sister Moon Orchid. Moon Orchid has been living in China after her husband left for America, got a new wife, and never bothered to send for Moon Orchid. He did send her money, but never made any move to bring her to America. Finally, Brave Orchid sends for her and they reunite. We see immediately that Moon Orchid is less independent: in fact she can’t do anything by herself, not even wash the dishes or do the laundry. She’s shy and she’s timid and she seems to be a very weak woman. Brave Orchid’s children take a disliking to her, complaining about her hovering and curiosity. She’s like that one annoying relative who keeps asking you questions when you don’t want to be asked. Brave Orchid convinces her sister to go down to LA and see her husband again and demand he take her back and get rid of Second Wife. Basically, nothing amounts from that.
The fifth and last section, “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”, basically just goes into Kingston’s retelling of her life in America as a schoolgirl. We see her trying to tell her mother of her sins and being forgiven for them. We learn about her experiences in both American and Chinese school and how they shaped her.
I didn’t particularly adore this book. It was long and endless and confusing. However, I liked the themes behind it and the overall messages it sent out. Growing up Chinese-American, there were some things I could understand or even relate to, though there were others that I could not identify with at all. I would recommend this book to readers looking for a strong, feministic, and brave memoir.
Main Character: Kingston
Sidekick(s): mother, family, etc
Villain(s): racism, sexism, misunderstandings, etc
Memoir Elements: This book was a factual representation of Kingston’s life.
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