Does Kingston exorcise or create ghost in The Woman Warrior?

"Ghost as Chinese-American Constructs in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior" by Gayle K. Fujita Sato

and

"Kingston’s as Exorcist" by Joseph S. M. Lau

Comprehensive Summary

"Ghost as Chinese-American Constructs in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior"

Sato describes her essay as "read[ing] The Woman Warrior as a distinctly Asian-American text by showing how "ghost" designates a particular as well as a shared Chinese-American existence" (Sato 193). Although in the interpretation of her experience, Kingston speaks of what is "Chinese" and what is "American" separate from each other, she represents her life as an undichotomized totality of Chinese-American culture, combining both cultures into one single culture. Kingston first separates the "invisible [Chinese] world" from the "solid America", but then uses the synthesis of these two in the figure of "ghosts" (which combines the invisible and the solid) to represent the experiences of the Chinese-American culture. Because she has never actually been to China, Kingston must learn about the Chinese culture through the Chinese traditions and the stories that her parents tell her of her ancestors. She is also separated from her American culture in that she is a Chinese-American growing up as an immigrant in suburban America during the Vietnam War. Kingston uses ghosts as constructs to naming and locating her home, not in China or America, but "someplace in between" (Sato 195).

"Kingston as Exorcist"

This essay claims that Kingston uses certain characters to help her portray the cruelty toward humans, especially women. The No Named Women is just one of these characters that she used to help show the cruelty of women in the society. Kingston said that there was a central theme of human cruelty in both The Women Warrior and China Men. Although in The Women Warrior she focuses more on female cruelty than just human cruelty in general. Exposing these various themes of cruelty, "The Woman Warrior and China Men are words of exorcism through which the author negotiates her own terms of peace as an American of Chinese ancestry" (Lau 51). Being an American-born Chinese, in real life, Kingston can never even imagine to fulfill her parents demands which deal with issues of traditional Chinese virtues. Through her writings Kingston can successfully live up to her parents ideals according to the Chinese culture in the re-creation of such legendary figures that she has developed. "Such is the power of imagination and re-creation" (Lau 51).

Interesting Quotes

Ë "Fa Mu Lan’s back was carved and inked with words of revenge, and in her own way Kingston is immersed in ink as a writer. Moon Orchid distinguishes Kingston from her siblings as the "girl smeared in ink"(152)…" (Sato 197).

Ë "No Name Woman enriches the culture that banishes her, surviving—and thereby transforming the meaning of ghost—as an embodiment of the value of extravagance, luxuriance, and passion." (Sato 198).

Ë "No wonder she wants to grow up a warrior woman seeking vengeancy—‘not the beheading, not the gutting, but the words.’" (Lau 46)

Ë "If the private experience of encountering ghosts means entering diversity, darkness, and dreams to test individual power, the public, narrated experience is one of disengaging from otherness in order to reconfirm social identity." (Sato 205).

Ë "Her aunts suicide is not merely a personal or family tragedy: it is a measure of the suffering inflicted on Chinese women by the feudal society." (Lau 46).

Ë Racial prejudice, sexual inequality, and social injustice in general seem to be the most deeply engraved wounds on the back of the woman warrior." (Lau 50).
 
 

 Do you agree? Ë "It is important to remember that the most fearsome of ghosts are not the ones actually seen or encountered, but the ghosts of the lost old world brought back to life by her mother—those like the ghost of the No Name Woman; the ghosts of her uncles made to kneel on broken glass during the struggle campaigns in Communist China; or the ghost of the aunt who drowned herself after her thumbs had been twisted off." (Lau 46) Ë "Kingston settled on ghost, first of all to reflect immigrant women’s indirect interaction with society…..the range of meanings ghost embraces—threat and coercion mitigated by indefiniteness, seductive beauty and charm." (Sato 199).
 
 

Ë "’…memoirs of a girlhood among ghost.’ The Woman Warrior takes the ‘form of autobiographical writing dealing with the recollections of prominent people or people who have been a part of or have witnessed significant events.’" (Lau 45).

Ë "The horror that was China, ancient and modern, feudal or Communist, must be exorised." (Lau 46)

Ë "Her steady stream of words is equivalent to asserting the weight of her existence against the immense weight of the sitting ghost, which is symbolic of self-doubts and other obstacles to be overcome in acquiring a medical diploma."(Sato 205).

Ë "Vengeance by reporting is her professed aim, though the achieved effect, in the light of history, is more akin to that of a requiem. The Woman Warrior and China Men are words of exorcism through which the author negiotates her own terms of peace as an American of Chinese ancestry." (Lau 51).