Woman Warrior, The

Female Characters

The first chapter about the narrator's aunt, No Name Woman, examines the rules patriarchy imposes on women. No Name Woman is punished by society for giving birth out of wedlock. She commits suicide after killing her baby, and is consequently expunged from familial and communal history. The narrator sees No Name Woman as an artist without a venue for expression, and thus her predecessor. By breaking the silence that surrounds her, by narrating her story, the narrator gives No Name Woman her voice.

The narrator reinvents the Chinese legend of Fa Mu Lan, the Woman Warrior, to present a different kind of model for herself, but realizes that the Woman Warrior supports patriarchy by pretending to be a man. While struggling to translate the lessons of Chinese legends, the narrator realizes that they are inapplicable to American reality. She also rejects the Woman Warrior's aggression and opts for pacifism.

Brave Orchid, the narrator's mother, is portrayed as a shaman who fought ghosts and other nether beings in China. As a woman connected to otherworldly phenomena, she represents another aspect of female and Chinese identity that is perceived as the Other. Kingston simultaneously subverts a Chinese fantastic context by providing different versions of her mother's story and fusing reality and fantasy. In the story of the narrator's aunt Moon Orchid, who loses her mind after forced immigration to the United States, Kingston examines the theme of female lunacy as a result of some women's inability to fit into the prerogatives of patriarchal society. Lunacy is also connected to [Page 2183]the failure of immigrants to adapt to the rules of the new society and to assimilate. Moon Orchid clings to her Chinese way of life, and she is constantly perceived as the Other, even by her American family. She is compared to a character from Chinese fairy tales, which is a way for Kingston to call attention to the way immigrant identities are constructed in their new environment.

The fifth chapter tells the story of Ts'ai Yen, a historical figure who was kidnapped and forced to live with a barbarian tribe for several years. She becomes a figure who is a synthesis of all the characters in the book, with her hybrid identity and life in exile. She also becomes a poet, and her work is a poem about the Other, as well as the sublimation of her grief and hope for survival. Kingston comments that Ts'ai Yen's art translates well from Chinese into English, using the metaphor of translation to show the connectedness of cultures, plurality, multiculturalism, and intertextuality of art.

...