In the opening of the first chapter, “No Name Woman”, we can see how Kingston lived in a continual conflict between messages, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle, of two cultures. How could a bridge be built on this terrible emptiness with socialization within a framework of expectations on the one hand and acculturation on the other? The lack of public voice, the silence, the secret kept, formed the loose threads of the story of the aunt who committed suicide and whose name was erased from the collective memory. “You must not tell anyone, my mother said, What I am about to tell you. In China your father had a sister who killed herself. She jumped into the family well. We say that your father has all brothers because it is as if she had
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She tested our strengths to establish realities…. those of us in the first generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America”, A woman victim or complicity of a sexual relationship, ended her life as the Chinese tradition commanded: She took with her her newborn daughter. At least that's what Kingston speculates, "It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys" (15). This person was silenced for posterity, remembered only through fragile and fragmentary actions, but apt to become threats when pronounced on time. Of these fragments, Kingston rescued her aunt, "But there is more silence: they want me to participate in their punishment. And I have" (16). For twenty years, Kingston did not dare ask for details about this mysterious aunt, this brave precedent for herself. She never uttered her name. It was an act of bravery to remember her, even to invent her through her own history, The Warrior Woman. It is this shadow-ghost that dominates the first section of the book. In this way Kingston gives back both her personality, and voice. The fact that Kingston never mentioned her undesired aunt, shows how she was forced to not bring her up. She was to remain silent about the story her mom had just told her. No one brought her up, that Kingston did not even know what her name
She tested our strengths to establish realities…. those of us in the first generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America”, A woman victim or complicity of a sexual relationship, ended her life as the Chinese tradition commanded: She took with her her newborn daughter. At least that's what Kingston speculates, "It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys" (15). This person was silenced for posterity, remembered only through fragile and fragmentary actions, but apt to become threats when pronounced on time. Of these fragments, Kingston rescued her aunt, "But there is more silence: they want me to participate in their punishment. And I have" (16). For twenty years, Kingston did not dare ask for details about this mysterious aunt, this brave precedent for herself. She never uttered her name. It was an act of bravery to remember her, even to invent her through her own history, The Warrior Woman. It is this shadow-ghost that dominates the first section of the book. In this way Kingston gives back both her personality, and voice. The fact that Kingston never mentioned her undesired aunt, shows how she was forced to not bring her up. She was to remain silent about the story her mom had just told her. No one brought her up, that Kingston did not even know what her name