The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts | 
|  | | | Title: | The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts | | Author: | Maxine Hong Kingston | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 23 April, 1989 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0679721886 / 9780679721888 | | List Price: | $13.95 | | You Save: | $3.01 | | Amazon Price: | $10.94 | |
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Product Description
A Chinese American woman tells of the Chinese myths, family stories and events of her California childhood that have shaped her identity.
Amazon.com Review
The Woman Warrior is a pungent, bitter, but beautifully written memoir of growing up Chinese American in Stockton, California. Maxine Hong Kingston (China Men) distills the dire lessons of her mother's mesmerizing "talk-story" tales of a China where girls are worthless, tradition is exalted and only a strong, wily woman can scratch her way upward. The author's America is a landscape of confounding white "ghosts"--the policeman ghost, the social worker ghost--with equally rigid, but very different rules. Like the woman warrior of the title, Kingston carries the crimes against her family carved into her back by her parents in testimony to and defiance of the pain.
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Customer Reviews:
• Eliptical Elusiveness Still Elucidates Immigration 25 May, 2008
The women ancestors of a geeky Chinese-American girl pile up impressive resumes, no worries ! They are kungfu heroines, joining peasant armies that overthrow the very Imperial throne. They are doctors who brave ghosts and come to America. They are mothers and grandmothers who remain staunchly Chinese in the face of the full press of American culture. They are sisters or aunts in Chinatown apartments or unknown relatives killed for following their hearts instead of the rules back in village China. Slowly, slowly, the background of the author (maybe) is depicted. You need some patience to realize what the author is doing. She doesn't give quarter. Readers who like everything spelled out will be disappointed. Ghosts play a big role in every section of the book. Ghosts train the warriors, ghosts oppose the student and the laundryworker. All Americans even appear as ghosts of a vast variety. Yes, it's one way of looking at the experience of immigration. You leave home, where everything is known, and come to a very foreign land where nothing is comprehensible. You understand nothing of the language or customs, but you have to make your way, earn a living, survive. Daring to sit and struggle with ghosts in a haunted Chinese classroom is similar to fighting with aliens in an alien land. So, you might interpret everyone around you as a `ghost'--scary, but propitiated or turned aside each in its own way. Women in China are treated like chattel, she says, but here women take control, control ghosts, control lives, control themselves. Is it a dream ? Is it another way of looking at Chinese women ? You will decide this for yourself after reading this highly original, lyrical book of tales of immigration, tales of women in a strange land, tales of "how I got to be me". It's got to be one of the most creative immigrant novels yet written.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1TIZI060W4BD9
• Ghosts 23 January, 2009
I'll never forget the moment when, reading this book, I realized that I am a ghost (to Chinese). A poignant realization. Read the book to see what I mean.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A9FNL4L4SL17G
• Culture= Chinese Vs. American 29 March, 2009
The Woman Warrior is a beautifully written story about a girl growing up in America, torn between the culture of her Chinese family and the culture of the country in which she lives, told through five short stories. Throughout the novel, this is the major conflict that the main character faces. I would give this novel a rating of four stars because of the way in which the book is written, switching point of views between the main character and her mother. Also there is a great conflict that exists in most places around the world. The story also provides a theme that everyone can relate to.
The main character is a girl who holds an extremely powerful imagination in her hands. She is not named within the book. In the first two short stories, she is told different legends and throughout the story, develops them into something that pleases her imagination. In the first story, she is told that her father had a sister, though she was never informed of this before in her life. Her parents never mentioned her because she committed the crime of adultery, becoming pregnant while her husband was away. Like Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, she is ridiculed because of this, which eventually causes her to kill herself, along with the baby. Within this vignette, our main character is only given a brief summary of what happened. Then the reader witnesses her thinking deeply about the situation. She takes what her mother told her and imagined that she was in her aunt's shoes from the time she realized she was pregnant to the time in which she committed suicide.
Another great example of the imagination of the main character is in the second story where she gives the reader information about a legend about Fa Mu Lan, who was a great warrior in Chinese legend. The main character talks about how the adults would talk-story, meaning they would tell the children legends. This was something she loved as a child. When she heard the legend about Fa Mu Lan, she sees herself as a girl who climbs a mountain and meets an old couple. They train her as a warrior and she becomes famous for her feats, disguising herself as a man. This really shows how the main character gets carried away in her mind. It also hints that she might wish she was someone else, or that her life was more exciting.
The main character grows up in America and is conflicted between the two cultures surrounding her. At times she talks about how she wishes she were "American pretty" instead of "Chinese pretty" because they are two different things. She also shares how the Chinese act differently at school, by being quieter than the others in the class. Although she shows a lot of the Chinese characteristics, she is ridiculed because she still in influenced by Americans, as her mother says. We see this distinction a lot through one of the stories where her mother's sister comes to America. She is not welcomed like Chinese normally welcome family. She isn't treated the same either. The children are occupied with their own lives to notice most of the time.
The main character's mother is another powerful figure shown throughout the story. We find her name is Brave Orchid. Brave Orchid went to medical school in China while her husband was in America, trying to make money while Communism began to take over China. She finished medical school and was a well known doctor in her village. She also believed heavily in ghosts and spirits. Throughout the novel, she calls the Americans and foreigners ghosts, when she finally travels to America. When in America, she is unable to be a doctor because the training is different. Instead, the family invests in a Laundry. Brave Orchid is a strong person, working full time at the Laundry and raising her children, trying to keep them within the Chinese culture, though they are in America. She is a loving parent, as well, even though her children are so different than she is.
Not only does she love her children, but her entire family, especially her sister. Her sister, Moon Orchid, comes to America to visit and find her husband, who left the house to make money in America. Brave Orchid is very brave, as her name says, forcing her sister to see him, though they don't know whether or not he wants to see her. Eventually, they do see him and he doesn't want to see his first wife again, sending her away and thrusting her into a deep depression that lands her in a mental institute.
One major conflict in the story lies with the main character and her growing up in America while her parents try to raise her in the Chinese culture. She is torn between the culture she is growing up in and the culture that exists around her. Although she is torn between the two cultures, she tries to embrace both. It is apparent that, at first, her and her parents go through culture shock because of the difference. This is similar to the culture shock some people face in the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. In this novel, the Africans are forced to integrate with British, which cause many to revolt. Although there are no revolts to the culture in The Woman Warrior, some of the character's reactions are similar. Brave Orchid is similar to Okonkwo in the fact that she is forced to embrace the new culture, but tries her hardest to keep her Chinese ways.
A theme within the novel is to never forget your culture, no matter where you are. Although you may be growing up within a different place, your culture is a part of you. The main character's culture is a split between her Chinese parents' cultures and the culture of the America she grows up in. This is different from her mother's culture which is her Chinese history. Although their cultures differ, along with many characters' cultures in the novel, it is important to live within your culture, because it is who you are. We see this in the end of the novel, where Brave Orchid begins a story to tell her daughter, the main character. Then the main character ends the story with her imagination. It is within Brave Orchid's culture to talk-story and to share legends and even invent new stories that reflect the ways of the Chinese. The main character grew up in America, where imagination is treasured. She also grew up with the Chinese influence, which causes her to finish the story with her own adaptation, though there are Chinese elements to it. This shows how she is mixed between American culture and Chinese culture.
I would recommend this book to any woman, especially young adolescents. It is a great story to show a mother/daughter relationship. It is also a great book to show the progress of a girl growing up within a world that holds many differences than she is brought up to believe. The Woman Warrior gives a glimpse of a girl's life through her point of view and her mothers, while giving stories from both of their lives, to give perspective on their personalities. It is also five different stories molded in to one, this creates an easy read, though the concepts are intricate. I would recommend the book to someone who is searching for a novel that really makes you think and also anyone who is interested in different cultures, especially the Chinese culture.
This book is very different than many out there, but the passion within the characters and their relationships give it true life, creating a masterpiece worth reading.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1W0R8FNMWUCXN
• Woman Warrior, A Hauntingly Lyrical Memoir. 07 April, 2008
Woman Warrior is among the most gripping lyrical-memoirs I've read. It is author Maxine Kingston's Chinese ancestry that teaches her that girls are half-ghosts that walk a tight wire: one wrong step and they transcend into full-pledged ghosts, with all memory of their existence erased from time. Girls in the history of her Chinese culture are regarded much the way Middle Eastern women are regarded today: burdensome and dangerous. The Chinese saying "When fishing for treasures in the flood, be careful not to pull in girls," conveys a message repeated to Kingston throughout her girlhood.
Kingston is eternally haunted by one particular "no-name" ghost: her dead aunt, a woman shamed by her village, a woman forgotten, a woman whose name and memory are not uttered. Haunted by her nameless, faceless aunt, Kingston also finds herself displaced and alienated as she attempts to put together two worlds: her Chinese ancestry, and her new American life.
Resentment builds in Kingston as she struggles to put together the secrets and hushed words of her ancestry. The only stories her elders will elucidate to her are ones meant to haunt her, but even these are not fully in truth. How is she to form an identity when she is refused knowledge of her past? When she can't define her self as being a solid part of any given culture? Without proper definition of place, one merely floats along, trying to make sense of it.
Kingston also faces the difficult challenge of becoming an American female, which is much different than a Chinese female. Caught between what she's been taught gives a female value in Chinese culture, and what she is learning gives a female value in American culture. Her feeling of alienation deepens as she realizes that she no longer holds an authentic, cultural identity. No longer native Chinese, not quite American either. Even amongst her fellow Chinese-American Immigrants, she finds herself displaced as they all melt into the pot at different consistencies. "No other Chinese, neither the ones in Sacramento, nor the ones in San Francisco, nor Hawaii speak like us."
The only refuge Maxine Kingston finds is in the archetype of the Woman Warrior, Fa Mu Lan. Fa Mu Lan is used as a metaphor for female choice, female purpose, female strength and power. Fa Mu Lan assumes both the traditional Chinese female role, and the American, career-minded female role. Fa Mu Lan returns homes to assume traditional domestic roles, only after she has been out in the world fighting, first! She fights, she is warrior woman, and then at the end of it all, she returns to her duties at home. Fa Mu Lan is a survivor of both worlds, and because she faces such danger outside of her home, the inside of her home may seem relatively less dangerous--the home of Kingston's past being a symbolically dangerous place, as it was for her no-name aunt.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AJGJWDWBA6JQJ
• Great... Kinda 03 May, 2009
When i got this book i was slightly disappointed because the pages were starting to yellow and the cover was a little bit damaged; but i am happy to get a a 9.00 book for only fifty cents!
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1L9TBC05FZ8J8
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