The Woman Warrior Standing Between Worlds

Maxine Hong is a famous American writer, and she has been well-known for her works about Chinese-Americans whose lives are filled with feelings of displacement and frustration. For the first generation born in America, it is especially difficult to reconcile the heavy-handed and often restrictive traditions of the emigrants with the relative freedom of life in America.The publication of The Woman Warrior stirred among Asian American writers and critics. In addition to receiving wide praise and winning the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction Kingston has been criticized for purporting to represent the "typical" experience of Chinese-Americans, and in other cases for taking traditional material and changing it to suit her own needs. One of the sources is the story of Mu Lan, a traditional Chinese folktale about a girl who took the place of her father to join the army and succeeded in the battle. The thesis is a shallow study of the female consciousness reflected by the women characters in The Woman Warrior. Meanwhile, from the perspective of cross-culture the altering of the traditional Chinese material has found its way in this novel which is written by the female Chinese-American writer.Kingston's memoir, The Woman Warrior, represents an important break from past writings. It is a blending of voices and styles, often contradictory, which use many of the techniques of postmodernism: ambiguity, incoherence, pluralism, and irony.It is mainly divided into the following four chapters:Chapter 1 focuses on the social position of the Chinese women and women in other countries under the control of men, which is the main reason for the Chinese American women to keep silence. The narrative explores the fate of women and also is written by a woman. As a special group, women have their own particular pursuit and requirements. They used to be considered as the underprivileged group, and their unique status has been arousing much attention increasingly. For many centuries they have been subjected to bullying and humiliation, but they never bow to difficulties and discriminations. The Woman Warrior, which describes a Chinese American girl's struggle for self-definition amid Chinese stories told by her mother, reflects women's poor and miserable position not only in the masculine society but also in their family life. The feminist critics believe that what is represented in The Woman's Warrior is a typical experience of a Chinese American woman who, being "between worlds, totally at home nowhere"(1), struggles to come to terms with the paradoxes of her "double-marginal identity".Chapter 2 probes into the feminist consciousness in The Woman Warrior. Since The Woman Warrior was written in the year 1976 the social background must be the feminist movement. The women characters in this work became especially essential in the feminist literature criticism and the women's position in literature has been unprecedently promoted and the main purpose of the women literature in this period is to establish real tradition to practice feminist freedom. For most Asian American feminist they applauded The Woman Warrior for its feminist voice, admitting the "double-allegiance" of a woman writer of color. Shirley Lim argues that the feminist voice in The Woman Warrior indicates a breath-taking leap in female consciousness.From the angle of cross-culture chapter 3 analyzes the successful characteristics and limitations of changing the traditional Chinese material for the need of the writing. At the same time, the thesis also gives an insight into the differences between Chinese culture and American culture.And in chapter 4 Kingston's unique writing style has been explored, which owes great to her double identities. For scholars of autobiography, The Woman Warrior is a significant break from the past writings as well as an innovation of new writing form. The narrative, history and autobiography mix together to tell women's stories. This new form is easily accepted by women and an ideal way to express feminist consciousness.Motivated by the scarcity of adequate portrayals of Chinese American women in American literature, Kingston is making a great effort to depict the uniqueness and diversity of that experience as an integral part of the American and Chinese American tradition. She also attempts to shatter the American patriarchal myths and stereotypes through self-expression. The Woman Warrior utters the inner thoughts of those Chinese American women so that they can emerge in positive self-affirmation.