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Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior

791 Words4 Pages

In Maxine Hong Kingston’s 1976 novel The Woman Warrior, Hong Kingston, through several novellas, illustrates key moments and stories from her life, including stories of great female warriors like Fa Mulan, and even her own mother, who overcomes adversity and danger, both literal and metaphorical. Through the vehicle of these autobiographical moments and “talk-stories”, Hong Kingston reveals her views on feminism and her views on individual the role and individual liberty of Women in Chinese culture. As a first-generation Chinese-American, she had a very different perspective on her role as a person than her parents, during a time when second-wave feminism was affecting swathes of American cultural ideals. Hong Kingston’s ideas echo many of the key features of this movement, like independence from men, seeking out your own education, and not needing the approval of a man or family to be successful.
In The Woman Warrior, a key feature of the novel is the relative dearth of male characters, the only main ones with any characterization being Hong Kingston’s …show more content…

Hong Kingston, being a first generation Chinese-American affected her in many ways, having to deal with the culture clash of not only China and America, but of communist China and old China, and her own blend of ideals clashing against those of her parents. Hong Kingston not only believed in the personal liberty of women in their own decisions in life, but also to become independent of the antiquated idea of subservience to their husbands, to become strong and educated, to become woman

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