Silence And Voice In Kingston's The Woman Warrior

This modified passage, which goes on for more than a whole page is a double climax because on the one hand, Kingston breaks free from the repression she has felt throughout the childhood by her family and the Chinese customs (). On the other hand, she takes up the agency and “makes a statement” to her parents (): Kingston chooses to form her own identity regardless of the ethnic background as a Chinese American and rejects the idea of what her parents expect her to be. It might be true that her parents gave her an additional ethnic background the day she was born, and then partly forced on her by her mother and the Chinatown, but Kingston finally realizes that she has the final say in her “choice” of identity ().

In summary, silence and voice are both themes which can be easily found in The Woman Warrior. Oftentimes, they are regarded as binaries. The binary opposition silence and voice is closely related to power relations. Whereas the former one, according to Hunt, signifies weakness and inferiority, the latter one is linked to superiority (7). However, Parrott suggests otherwise. He says that silence can be associated with “power” when deliberately chosen but a “repression” when being imposed by someone else (Parrott ). The most salient feature of silence and voice is that Kingston uses both in order to create an …show more content…
Generally, men are associated with superiority, activeness and strength, while women are articulated with inferiority, passiveness as well as weakness. Concerning Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, there seems to be one additional attribute to the men-women dichotomy: men as the favored sex and women as unfavored one. This chapter demonstrates whether there is actually a favored sex in The Woman Warrior’s Chinese spatial setting and if it does, what the female characters did in order to be respected like