The Woman Warrior Analysis

The Woman Warrior, Memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts, combines myths with autobiography in order to explore Kingston’s identify formation in relation to her mother and female relatives. Kingston uses the first person to narrate five distinct short stories. Each of them contains a central female character. The unique feature of this book is the rearrangement of the traditional Chinese myths, legend of Fa Mu Lan and Ts’ai Yen. The combination of fact and fiction and the combination of reality and fantasy closely intertwine in the stories. Critical use of Chinese myths in the Woman Warrior shows a sharp contrast with Kingston’s real life in America and accentuates the equality between women and men. In Chapter two of the Woman Warrior, Kingston presents the story by using Fa Mu Lan as an archetype to display the heroine image of “I”. Fa Mu Lan disguises as a man and takes her father’s
place in the conscription army. “You can avenge your village. You can recapture the harvests the thieves have taken. You can be remembered by the Han people for your dutifulness.” (P23) Inspired by the old woman, “I” make up my mind to fight for the honor and identity. During 15 years of training, “I” have learned how to be quiet, how to survive bare handed and how to practice in dragon ways. After leaving the mountain, “I” become a real woman warrior, raise armies, and fight for justice. Staying in the mountain is “my” choice of life. “When it rained, I exercised in the downpour, grateful not to be pulling sweet potatoes. I was grateful not to be squishing in chicken mud, which I did have nightmares about so frequently now.” (P30) “I” choose to be a woman warrior like Fa Mu Lan, but mother does not change the fate of pulling sweet potatoes with father.
“I” fight for the villagers and for the no name aunt.
There is a cause-and-effect relationship between No Name Woman and White Tigers. In No Name Women, a nameless aunt becomes notorious and outcast. She finally cannot take much pressure anymore and commits suicide when she gives birth to an illegitimate child. Telling the death of the nameless aunt to Kingston, her mother warns Kingston that “now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful.” (P5) The nameless aunt seems to have no relationship with Kingston, but it reminds Kingston about her community in America. On one hand, her mother brackets them together because she has a negative attitude toward the woman’s role in Chinese society. On the other hand, people who live around Kingston still follow the conservative thoughts just like the villagers. They degrade women’s role in the society and limit women’s freedom. Kingston grows up with the conflicts of two different
cultures. Kingston changes several elements of Fa Mu Lan to shape the ideal woman warrior. She takes fidelity away from Fa Mu Lan. “I” join the army for the father is not because of the influence of dominant ideology but thanks to the desire of contribution. Under Kingston’s pen, the woman warrior is pleased to go everywhere and is brave to contact with the outside world. She is the true heroine that desires to be free of gender discrimination. Kingston does not only write about Fa Mu Lan but integrates other traditional Chinese story in it. Yue Fei’s mother tattooed characters on the skin of Yue Fei to remind him of serving the motherland with selfless loyalty. In this way, father writes out oaths and names on my back to remind me about the anger and revenge. Although these two stories are entirely different, Kingston creates a powerful woman that takes the same responsibility as a man does. The woman warrior successfully demonstrates the machismo that only the man has. Great ambition and strength make the woman warrior to have the ability to fight on the battlefield.