Maxine Hong Kingston

In Amy Tan’s essay, Mother Tongue, Tan discusses her struggles growing up as an Asian-American born to Chinese immigrants. She examines certain aspects of the language she speaks and writes, against the language her mother speaks and writes. Amy has a keen grip on “proper” English, most likely due to her being raised in America. Alternatively, Tan’s mother speaks in fragments of English due to her being an immigrant who fled China’s Cultural Revolution (Amy, 1990). Tan realises her different…

Can you survive in the woods, alone, in the cold? In order to survive in conditions like those you have to have extreme survival skills. In the articles “My escape from N.K.”, “Trapped,” and the movie “Lone Survivor,” these characters had these skills to survive. It takes courage, endurance, and intelligence to be a survivor. Courage is used in survival because if you don’t believe in yourself then you won’t think that you are going to survive. Courage is used in the story, “My escape from…

and killing him as a woman, inspires Kingston to embrace her own female identity. Kingston recalls Fa Mu Lan’s intention to kill the Baron to avenge her village, but first reveals herself which inspires Kingston. Kingston state’s, “You’ve done this,’ I said, and ripped off my shirt to show him my back. ‘You are responsible for this.’ When I saw his startled eyes at my breasts, I slashed him across the face and on the second stroke cut off his head.” (Kingston 44). Fa Mu Lan kills the Baron and…

In The Woman Warrior, Kingston develops the image of China placing restrictive binds around her feet in order to illustrate how even though her family has been separated from China for many years, the Chinese culture and ideals restricts Kingston's rights as a woman. Since Kingston's birth after Kingston's mom, Brave Orchid, moved to America she has held high expectations for her daughter to accomplish many things while all the while juxtaposing her own stories with ancestral tales and duties of…

Genji’s Future Love Within The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, chapter three titled “Lavender” stands out to encompass many Chinese ideals that help further understand their history and way of life. Throughout the entirety of chapter three, Genji develops a deep interest for a young girl named Murasaki, and the chapter sheds insight on the chase of women and indirectness. In order to fully understand Shikibu’s claims throughout the chapter, it is imperative to unpack the details within the…

Kingston measures her success against her mother’s tale of a woman who learns the ways of a warrior and grows up to save her village; and feels dissatisfied with her achievements due to the unattainable greatness she strives for. While Kingston is growing up, her mother tells her stories of the past, and paint a picture of the warriors that walked before her. Growing up, she looked up to the legendary heroine, the woman warrior, who saved her village; bringing greatness to herself, and pride to…

Maxine Kingston’s story, “No Name Woman” recounts the tale of a young lady who learns the heartbreaking history of her aunt’s illegitimate child. The resulting aftermath is a bevy of turmoil and chaos that ultimately forces her to meet a tragic end. Kingston spends most of her time bordering on the line between fact and fiction, making the readers journey through the story quite complicated. The author is amazing at illustrating what a struggle it is for Maxine to believe certain things about…

Yuchin is the unrealistic character of The Bane of the Internet, a short story written by Ha Jin. This story has an almost humorous tone as two sisters, one who lives in China and the other in New York, communicate with each other. This character and her older sister wrote and sent each other letters via the postal service as their main means of communication until they discovered email. The name of the older sister is unknown but this story is told through her point of view. The narrator is…

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…

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…