The woman warrior by maxine hong kingston Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The woman warrior by maxine hong kingston - Essay Example This story is evocative of Chinese patriarchy and a society where a woman in a socially undesirable position finds everything being stripped away from her, including her identity, so that when Kingston’s mother tells her the story, she informs her daughter that â€Å"We say that your father has all brothers because it is as if she had never been born† (Kingston 1). Such is the harsh fate that meets women and her mother uses this story as a basis to caution her daughter against sexual indiscretion, for it is not the man who must suffer the consequences, but the woman. There is no attempt made by anyone in her family to even consider that the aunt could have been a victim of rape or a passionate sexual individualist as Kingston imagines - instead, the villagers attack her family home and humiliate her to the point where her life becomes unbearable and she finally kills herself. The section of the book titled â€Å"White Tigers† is one of the best stories indicating the dichotomy in the treatment accorded to women as opposed to men. Kingston narrates the old Chinese saying which states that â€Å"when fishing for treasures in the flood, be careful not to pull in girls’, because that is what one says about daughters, even when one is in America (Kingston 52). Her own family is no different, because they mouth the same words and prepare the same ink drawings of unwanted little girl babies being pushed down the river with long flood hooks. She remarks with irony that she has read in an anthropology book that the Chinese say â€Å"Girls are necessary too† (Kingston 52-53), but in her own experience, she has not found it to be so. The story of White Tigers is Kingston’s re-telling of the traditional story of the Chinese warrior, Fa Mu Lan, a woman who dons the guise of a man, creating a character who is not limited by the boundaries of her gender. She is a brave swordswoman, and Kingston’s writing brings her fighting skills to life in stunning visuals