Fa Mulan's The Woman Warrior

I did not know that the writer of the outsiders was a woman until I arrived at the ”speaking with S.E. Hinton …” page at the end of the book. On the page, she talked about the reasons that she disguised her name and her real life experience socializing with boys that led her to write The Outsiders. The novel tells a story of rivalry between two boys’ gangs, the greasers and the socs, from the perspective of a 14 year old boy. Abate (169) acknowledged that, compared to other novels of similar theme, The Outsiders was “lack of true profanity, drug use, and sex acts.” Is it characteristically a touch of femininity that women writer produce when writing about violence?

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston addresses prevalent topics faced in America today. How should women act? Should women be treated differently from men? In her memoir, Kingston faces many obstacles with her Chinese-American identity such as finding her voice as a young woman. In “White Tigers,” Kingston tells her own version of a popular Chinese ballad, “Fa Mu Lan,” while incorporating her own reality back into the section. In her literary criticism, “Empowerment Through Mythological Imaginings in “Woman Warrior”,” Sue Ann Johnston comments on Kingston’s use of myths in the memoir, and believes that myths are Kingston’s most effective means of conveying messages to readers. Although these myths are effective, Johnston overlooks Kingston’s incorporation of these myths back into her own life. As demonstrated in “White Tigers,” Maxine Hong Kingston reveals that a woman warrior requires strength, dedication, independence, and confidence through her mother’s talk-stories and personal struggles during her life.

Susan S. Lanser’s “Feminist Criticism, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ and the politics of color in America” examines the impacts “The Yellow Wallpaper” had on feminist writing styles and critiques. Lanser writes that the story helps to analyze the reading trough “the lens of a female consciousness” and apply the knowledge gained from a female perspective onto other literature (418). The transition that the narrator displays from being dependent on John to becoming independent reflects the feminist movement and challenges the “male dominance” that currently takes precedence in society (418). The “patriarchal prisonhouse” that is society controls the narrator and oppresses women not only in “The Yellow Wallpaper” but in real life as well (419). The

The Chicana feminist is not widely accepted, or even recognized. At its best, Chicana writers and artists take to paper and other mediums to share the message. Writers, such as Andzaldua, comment on the necessity for writing. The Chicana expression of creative thought, otherwise unnoticed by the majority of people, is important in that it allows people to show the struggle, emotion, and wisdom surrounding personal experience (Andzaldua). Poetry, for instance, can be described as a political act, which enables further thought and understanding between people. Additionally, these stories reveal the great diversity among women.

Crenshaw’s Mapping the Margins: The Marginalization of Women of Color Analyzed Through Generalization and A Feminist Lens

Within societies, culture plays a huge role in shaping who a person becomes. What values they consent to and what would make them content and satisfied with life, otherwise said, happy. In a patriarchal racist community woman as a double minority suffer twice the burden of proving herself, defining her values, and finding what defines her. Some of these women choose to obey and submit and live life as given to them. Just a few stand up for themselves, speak up, fight toward their freedom and independence against all cultural norms and social constructions including race and patriarchy. Some people may suggest that in Zora Nelson Huston’s book Their Eyes Were Watching God the main character Janie is in a continuous search for a true love. However,

The book, “America Swastika: Inside the white power movement’s hidden spaces of hate” by Pete Simi and Robert Futrell, was written 2010. I chose this book because I am interested in learning about why these racist groups have so much hate towards another race or group. Personally, I do not condone racism because it does not make sense to me as to how one person can hate another one without knowing them. I wanted to learn about how people who are in groups such as, the Ku Klux Klan, live in our country which is identified as a melting pot. White power movements are talked about in our history books and are explained as if they are in the past, but they aren’t. We still deal with racism and hate in our country as stories about acts of hate crime

This is the case that is made by Danielle McGuire in At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women’s, Rape, and Resistance-A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. In this text, the author expands the discussion of the challenges that African American women contended with prior to and during the civil rights movement during the mid-twentieth century. The author argues that the rape and sexual violence that was prevalent during this era and its impact on Black women received minimal attention. The organization and activism that was fueled by women was similarly minimized (McGuire, 2010. Historians have documented how men have been affected by the topic of rape and violence in relation to white society

The memoir, “Farewell to Manzanar” by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, follow the life of the Wakatsuki family in Manzanar, going into depth how their new lives within the camps had a grave effect, altering the family dynamic of not only their family, but also that of all the internees. From the beginning, the authors open by portraying the sense of fear that swept across the Japanese community after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They describe how Jeanne’s father, who although at the time of pre-war had been living the “American dream”, owning his own business, and having his children to help him on his two boats, now feared for his freedom, burning the Japanese flag, as well as, anything else that could tie him back to his country

Farewell to Manzanar is Jeanne Wakatsuki's autobiography of her experiences at Manzanar an internment camp for Japanese and Japanese Americans. During World War II Japanese-Americans were relocated in Manzanar for their own protection but the people in Manzanar made the argument "if this is for our protection then why do they surround us in barb wire fences" (Wakatsuki, 65) they relocated Japanese Americans because President Roosevelt signed a order which authorizes the War Department to remove people considered to be threats to national security. This Chaos all began right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 7, 1941 in relation to this the bombing of Hiroshima in August 6, 1945 ended Word War II. A theme that Wakatsuki wants to get across would be," where you're from or your ancestry, is not as important as were you were raised and follow your heart" (Wakatsuki, 92). Jeanne was raised in the Long Beach area and thought that her heart was American. She had many experiences with life

In the movie, Mulan, by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook, they use the character, Mulan, to represent feminism and gender roles of women, such as bringing honor to their family through marriage, and how women are deemed to be “inferior” in the eyes of men, for example, when women are not able to participate in war, allowing Mulan to act and fight for what she believes is to be right. Although having a feeling of superiority over women, men tend to act more based on pride and honor than what they believe is to be just, thus making them seem unruly and disgusting.

American Literary stage has an array of expression. It is rightly asserted by Bhongle “Almost every literary genre is rich with new notions, and new ideologies. Women’s writings in America, Afro-American Literature, and Literature of the Immigrants Experience, and of the other ethnic groups- and the actively operating small but significant factors within these broad movements - make the contemporary American Literary scenario highly appealing”

A major theme in Hosseini's book, A Thousand Splendid Suns is sexism, violence, and the ideology that men have complete control over their wives or people in general. It can not only alter a person directly but it can also change other characters in the book that are close to them and can make them suffer with things not even associated with violence in their story. Violence and sexism can deteriorate a character's intimate and distant acts and can emphasize their status as a character which can be symbolic in the way the characters personality changes because of the violence afflicted to them.

“Everyday Use” is one of the most popular stories by Alice Walker. The issue that this story raises is very pertinent from ‘womanist’ perspective. The term, in its broader sense, designates a culture specific form of woman-referred policy and theory. ‘womanism’ may be defined as a strand within ‘black feminism’. As against womansim, feminist movement of the day was predominately white-centric. A womanist is one who expresses a certain amount of respect for woman and their talent and abilities beyond the boundaries of race and class. “Everyday Use” can be seen as a literary representation of this concept. “Everyday Use” is a story of a mother and her two daughters- Dee and Maggie.

This is seen in literature across all spectrums from fiction to poems, and even songs. Throughout all of these pieces of literature a man is used as a tool to set out the events for things that happen later in every one of these stories. This same trend can be seen in many of the works of artist today such as Taylor Swift. "And you call me up again just to break me like a promise / So casually cruel in the name of being honest"( Swift). This is yet another example of how a man can tragically break the spirit and heart of a woman unknowingly. This tool is only used though so authors can begin to unravel the true purpose of literature, and the purpose of their literature focuses on why these women are in so much pain and why they won't leave or try to escape their situation and what keeps them trapped there. The author builds the catalyst so they can focus on their true goal of writing about what occurs during the reaction, this is the true purpose of authors literature, and in this case, the purpose of the literature is to tunnel deep into the female heart and mine out its troubles, its problems, and everything that makes it tick. All of these authors are focusing on the affliction of the female heart. The authors write these women in instances of weakness so they can take a reader through the process of all the things they had to overcome to emerge stronger and more empowered on the other side of their situation,or tragically takes a reader through the events that lead to the main characters not being able to hold on any longer and what lead to their ultimate