A Spiritual Journey To Maturity

Maxine Hong Kingston, as one of the most famous of the Asian American writers,made a great contribution to the development of Asian American literature in USAand her works present the mysterious and deep Chinese culture with the history ofthousands of years to American public to build a bridge for connecting eastern andwestern culture. The Woman Warrior is her most critically praised work in which shevividly depicted how the immigrants and their American born children earned a livingin china-town under the influences from both American main stream culture and theirown Chinese traditional culture, while from every aspect of this work, Kingston alsoshowed the readers another important theme, that is, how she, as one of the firstgeneration of Chinese children born in the United States of America and a little girl inchina-town, grew up and matured, while confronted with various difficulties, such asthe conflicts and the integration between Chinese and American cultures, the loss ofidentity, the racial discrimination and especially the traditional prejudices towardsfemale. The thesis applies the theory of Bildungsroman to analyze the process ofKingston's growth to discuss how a little Chinese American girl in a bicultural milieuovercame all kinds of adversities to grow up and become psychologically maturegradually, finally being able to find a way to live harmoniously between two cultures.The paper is expounded in five parts:The introduction, first gives a brief account about the author, Kingston, herworks and the comments on her and her works by critics. Then a detailed analysis isgiven about the connection between Kingston's childhood living environment andexperience and The Woman Warrior. The last is the definition of the theory ofBildungsroman used in this paper and how this theory is employed to interpret thethree roles that Kingston took in her process of growing up.Chapter one, from Kingston's role as a listener, analyzes three main storieswhich has the most important influences on Kingston's childhood life and the formation of her character, that is, the story of No Name Woman aunt, the legend ofher mother and the experience of her weak maternal aunt. In childhood, the author isthe same as other children, knowing nothing about the surrounding, and parents'teaching is the first enlightenment education of life. In Kingston's living environment,the talk-story has more conspicuous function; home country's cultural history, livingways and moral standards told in the form of story seem to possess more influenceand attraction to an innocent child. Among a great many stories that Kingston heard,these three have the biggest influence on her. Through them, she gets a deepunderstanding of home country's culture and makes a dichotomy of it, knowing whatshould be inherited and what should be got rid of.Chapter two, from Kingston's role as a creator, analyzes the rebellious storiesthat Kingston created based on her adjusting the emigrant generation's and hermother's talk-stories. In these stories, she puts all her views about the real society andthe ideals to reform the corrupt practice into her created characters or her differentopinions of the real characters. In fact, she turns herself into an ideal woman warriorin imaginationChapter three, from Kingston's role as a practician, shows how Kingston wouldput her created stories—her living principles into practice, and view and reform thecurrent condition of life with literary creation, how she found a location betweenChinese and American cultures and integrated them and how she became thespokesman for her generation who were born and grew up in USA.In conclusion, the theme of Bildungsroman is made clear by her final maturity tofind a way to live harmoniously between two cultures, which proves that besidesbeing a novel about how Chinese immigrants settled, developed and faced and dealtwith the problem of ethnic and the conflicts between eastern and western cultures, TheWoman Warrior is also one about a little Chinese American girl's growing up in theUnited States of America.