Kingston University

Conflicts In The Work Of Maxine Hong Kingston And Alice Walker Recently I came across two readings that were strong-minded on conflicts that heavily affected the main characters path. These two readings I came across were " No Name Woman" By Maxine Hong Kingston and " Beauty: When The Other Dancer Is The Self" By Alice Walker. In " No Name Woman" By Maxine Hong Kingston the conflicts the main character faces is that when the Aunt of the writer broke a number of taboos in her…

Finding one's own personal voice is important to individual identity and helps against social injustices. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston is a memoir that invites readers into the life of one Asian American writer. Kingston narrates the story of several women in her family, and how they are oppressed and silenced by Chinese culture. During the narration, Kingston provides her own voice for those women in the culture that did not have the opportunity to speak out for themselves.…

Maxine Hong Kingston shows that one can form an identity by breaking silence in The Woman Warrior; Kingston develops this theme through different talk-stories stories her mother tells her. Throughout The Woman Warrior, Kingston gradually finds her own identity by examining heavily weighted talk-stories. Through these stories told to her by her mother and her aunt, she is able to express a part of her which her own experiences cannot explain as a Chinese-American female. Convinced by her mother’s…

It was April 12th 1865, the slaves of the south were promised an opportunity, a new opening in the world that had for so long been run by whites. With the end of the Civil War, America was supposed to be on to new horizons. Racism was supposed to eventually come to an end in order to make available the same prospect for all peoples, regardless of skin tone or cultural heritage. Instead, what ensued into the 20th and 21st centuries was the ire of prejudice and bigotry from both the minorities and…

nature. According to Schueller, “The initial story establishes the denial of expression women are condemned to in patriarchy and the cultural stranglehold the narrator must fight in order to express herself” (423). It is this cultural expectation that Kingston rebels against by telling her version of the unnamed woman. Schueller writes, “To articulate herself she must break through the numerous barriers that condemn her to voicelessness” (423). This liberation from the expectations placed on her…

each portrays a woman figure along with talk-stories: Kingston’s long-dead aunt in “No Name Woman”; female warrior Fa Mu Lan in “White Tigers”; Brave Orchid, Kingston’s mother in “Shaman”; Moon Orchid, Kingston’s aunt in “At the Western Palace”; Kingston herself at last. The chapters integrated the series of talk-stories with the narrator’s inner self feeling the ache of being split between the two cultures, to show her growth and development of realization. Each chapter carries their own unique…

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…

Individuality and community are the two defining characteristics for humans. Driven by both his rage and vanity, Wittman in Tripmaster Monkey by Maxine Kingston searches for a balance of these principles. As a character, Wittman is a confused artist. He is trying to be an individual in contemporary society, but finds this impossible because people think of him as different. Wittman correctly comprehends that this is because of the color of his skin. Wittman wants people to view him as…

Mountains are an important symbol throughout The Woman Warrior; therefore, I chose a Chinese painting called Summer Mountains. Mountains can symbolize obstacles, progression, loneliness, and isolation. In Summer Mountains, there are various mountains of different sizes; similarly, to how mountains take on different meanings throughout The Woman Warrior. For example, mountains first appear in the novel when Kingston’s mother mentions the Gold Mountains. The Gold Mountains refers specifically to…

Sisterhood of Spies Women of the OSS is about the untold contributions made by the woman of OSS (Office of Strategic Services) during World War II. The author, Elizabeth P. McIntosh, begins by introducing OSS and its origins. The first half of the book describes the operations and concepts of the different branches; the second half shows the adventures and actions of the women. The author relates stories from her own experiences as well interviews of over 100 women who served all over the world.…