Around the globe, social expectations towards gender are seen everywhere; magazines, television shows, advertisements, movies, and in many other different places. Societal expectations in terms of gender can be defined as the general standards that male or female individuals within a society are expected to uphold by demonstrating such ideals through their behavior, attire, manners, lifestyle, and attitudes. No Name Woman by Maxine Kingston describes the story of a woman who was forced into silence and shaming because of her pregnancy caused by rape while her husband had been gone for years. Such situation did not please the rest of her family and community, leading the woman towards silence and death as a cause of not fulfilling the society’s
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In the first chapter of her book The Woman Warrior – Memoirs of a Girlhood Amongst Ghosts, Kingston narrates the story of a ghost who appears to be her father’s sister (the no name woman) who drowned herself in shame and was soon forgotten, even by her own beloved brother. The author claims that the story came along with a taboo, as it describes woman suffering, rape, how to keep a marriage going or end it, illegitimate birth, death of a mother and a child. In No Name Woman, near the fields around the author’s house, Kingston’s aunt was raped while her husband was in America. When she got pregnant, the villagers abandoned Kingston’s aunt and tormented her, causing a tremendous amount of physical and psychological harm (Kingston 228). As a consequence, to not remaining inside the social expectations of a woman waiting for her husband, Kingston’s aunt delivered the child by herself caused by the torment and shaming from the community and the village, she killed her offspring and brought her own life to an eternal sleep (Kingston 239). Kingston’s main goal when writing the story was to bring back to life someone who was silenced, shamed, and forgotten as the author states in one of her interviews that what she is doing as a human being is to “give her back her life and find meaning for her and although she has no name, I’m going to give her back her life and her immortality by writing it down and making a story that will live forever”. Such statement helps understand the shaming caused by not fulfilling the social expectations as a woman, which lead to a very tragic situation of oppression and eternal
In the first chapter of her book The Woman Warrior – Memoirs of a Girlhood Amongst Ghosts, Kingston narrates the story of a ghost who appears to be her father’s sister (the no name woman) who drowned herself in shame and was soon forgotten, even by her own beloved brother. The author claims that the story came along with a taboo, as it describes woman suffering, rape, how to keep a marriage going or end it, illegitimate birth, death of a mother and a child. In No Name Woman, near the fields around the author’s house, Kingston’s aunt was raped while her husband was in America. When she got pregnant, the villagers abandoned Kingston’s aunt and tormented her, causing a tremendous amount of physical and psychological harm (Kingston 228). As a consequence, to not remaining inside the social expectations of a woman waiting for her husband, Kingston’s aunt delivered the child by herself caused by the torment and shaming from the community and the village, she killed her offspring and brought her own life to an eternal sleep (Kingston 239). Kingston’s main goal when writing the story was to bring back to life someone who was silenced, shamed, and forgotten as the author states in one of her interviews that what she is doing as a human being is to “give her back her life and find meaning for her and although she has no name, I’m going to give her back her life and her immortality by writing it down and making a story that will live forever”. Such statement helps understand the shaming caused by not fulfilling the social expectations as a woman, which lead to a very tragic situation of oppression and eternal