Empowering The Female Voice: The Madness And Ghost Narratives In Kingston's The Woman Warrior

Maxine Hong Kingston is one of the most influential and controversial contemporary Asian American authors. Kingston's first book "The Woman Warrior:Memoirs of a Girlhood among G7/oyte"(shortened as WW in the following) was an instant commercial and critical success,which has built Kingston's fame as a creative ethnic writer. Though readers' attitudes may vary a lot,controversies over Kingston's WW can be crystallized around two issues,that is,whether the book is an Orientalist autobiography or innovative fiction;whether Kingston's edition of Fa Mulan aims at fawning on the white people by distorting the traditional Chinese culture or at popularizing the traditional Chinese culture by bravely transforming it. As the madness and ghost narratives that Kingston bravely and broadly employs to describe her narrator's experiences in China and America seem to be a distinctive American Orientalist discourse towards China,many critics set the narratives as their criticizing targets. But I have a different reading about these narratives. This thesis will argue that Kingston's madness and ghost narratives are innovative narratives rather than Orientalist narratives for they help Kingston to empower and construct the voice and identity of Chinese American women by challenging patriarchal authority and American racism.Though there are many critical essays about Kingston's WW at home and abroad,no one has ever made a comprehensive study of the function of madwomen and ghosts in it. I try to decode and prove them as powerful narratives for Kingston to empower the voice of Chinese American women.The whole thesis is divided into four parts.The first part is a brief introduction of Kingston's life,works and critical responses to her works,followed by is a brief analysis of the theme of WW and a general study of the function of the madness and ghost narratives in it. In this book,Kingston eschews chronological plot and standard autobiographical techniques,blending myth,legend,history,and autobiography into a genre of her own invention to present a kaleidoscopic vision of female characters. Among this myth and imagination,madwomen and ghosts are especially noteworthy for they impressively reflect the voiceless and powerless condition of Chinese American women,effectively challenge the traditional Chinese patriarchal authority and American racism,and successfully construct a new but powerful voice for Chinese American women. Moreover,these two tropes also mirror Kingston's plight as an ethnic woman writer. While these tropes award Kingston as a word warrior,they also cause many misunderstandings and accusationsagainst her about her unconsciously or intentionally describing China as the Oriental Other. In fact,how to look at WW depends on what kind of perspective we choose. But whatever perspective we start with,we should base it on the writing purpose of Kingston. Otherwise,we will misunderstand this work.The second part elucidates the madness narrative as an innovative narrative,that is,creating a madness reality. Kingston uses Moon Orchid and other madwomen to illustrate that women's madness actually reflects their experiences. Then the evil of sexism and racism will be self-exposed. More importantly,being mad is a strategy for Chinese women to fulfill their desires and to challenge the patriarchal and racist authorities. Those madwomen are also the double of Kingston,embodying her plight as an ethnic woman writer.The third part deals with the ghost narrative. It is carried on from three aspects. First,the thesis uses the story of no-name aunt and the exorcising-ghost experience of Brave Orchid to explain that the ghost narrative is an aggressive subversion to sexism. Then this thesis continues from two perspectives to show that the ghost narrative is a surviving strategy for Chinese Americans to subvert American racism,namely,Chinese Americans like Brave Orchid seem to maintain their balance and safety by calling the whites "ghosts". So the performance of telling ghost stories helps Chinese Americans to escape...