Power Relations In The Woman Warrior
Another scene where the power relation between silence (inferiority) and voice (superiority) is involved can be found in the final chapter of The Woman Warrior. When Kingston finds her schoolmate’s sister who hardly talks standing alone in front of the school, she lures the silent girl to the lavatory and tortures her until she would break the silence. Kingston told her: “You’re going to talk, […] I am going to make you talk, you sissy-girl [emphasis added]” (Kingston 175). Here, Kingston chooses the role as the person in power, whereas her schoolmate is chosen to be the weaker one. It is important to note that Kingston becomes the one who makes choices for her and the girl in terms of power relations, while the other girl is being chosen to …show more content…
It is said: “’The first thing you have to learn,’ the old woman [said], ‘is how to be quiet’” (Kingston 23). During the preparation to become a female warrior, she learns how to communicate without the articulation of language. As a result, she becomes a powerful woman (see Parrott), who can fight instead of her father in the army. Furthermore, she does not tell her fellow soldiers her gender, which protects her. Kingston/Fa Mu Lan says: “I never told them the truth. Chinese executed women who disguised themselves as soldiers or students, no matter how bravely they fought or how high they scored on the examinations” (Kingston 39). Thus, by putting on male clothes and the choice of silence, she becomes a strong woman (Parrott ). Unfortunately, silence as a powerful discourse and “weapon against her enemies” (Parrott ) only seems to work in the fictionalized tale of Fa Mu Lan. Towards the end of the second chapter, Kingston realizes that she cannot use silence as a weapon in the real world. When she has to confront her racist boss at work, who throws discriminating words such as “nigger yellow” (Kingston 48) to her, she is unable to stand up against him but remains silent. In other words, Parrott says that being silenced against one’s will is a “violent repression of statement”, whereas the choice of silence “represent[s…] empowerment”
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