An Analysis Of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior
There are many barriers in the world that keep people from understanding each other. Kingston uses her book to help her reader not only cross the lines of culture, but also become immersed in it. However, she knows that there are many more obstacles that could keep the reader from truly appreciating her work, one of which being simply the difference of viewpoint, and does her best to address those too. An analysis of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior reveals that Kingston is aware of how point of view can affect a story, and that she uses this to her advantage throughout the novel in order to give the reader a better understanding of what life was like for her. Kingston uses first person most often, as it serves her primary purpose:
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It is still her interpretation of the world around her, but it goes beyond her immediate life to explore the experiences of those close to her, such as her mother. She, “…has the advantage of being able to see the faces of all…and to use insight about what emotions they are experiencing,” to draw conclusions about what’s really going on (Macauley and Lanning 134). She takes what she knows, such as what her mother told her about becoming a doctor, then adds her own qualifications, such as, “Maybe my mother’s secret place was…,” or, “My mother relished these scare orgies,” on to it (Kingston 64, 65). However, she keeps her musings to a minimum. “…[Her] role [is] even less than secondary,” only taking part in the occasional interruption of the story in order to present information that otherwise would have been obscured, such as her mother’s feelings towards her former slave versus her feeling towards Kingston (Macauley and Lanning 134). We would have been largely unaware of this had Kingston not inserted the dialogue that resulted in her mother lamenting, “and here I was…paying two hundred dollars for you” (Kingston 83). This helps the reader develop not only an understanding of the people in Kingston’s life, but of their relationship with her and the effect they had on
It is still her interpretation of the world around her, but it goes beyond her immediate life to explore the experiences of those close to her, such as her mother. She, “…has the advantage of being able to see the faces of all…and to use insight about what emotions they are experiencing,” to draw conclusions about what’s really going on (Macauley and Lanning 134). She takes what she knows, such as what her mother told her about becoming a doctor, then adds her own qualifications, such as, “Maybe my mother’s secret place was…,” or, “My mother relished these scare orgies,” on to it (Kingston 64, 65). However, she keeps her musings to a minimum. “…[Her] role [is] even less than secondary,” only taking part in the occasional interruption of the story in order to present information that otherwise would have been obscured, such as her mother’s feelings towards her former slave versus her feeling towards Kingston (Macauley and Lanning 134). We would have been largely unaware of this had Kingston not inserted the dialogue that resulted in her mother lamenting, “and here I was…paying two hundred dollars for you” (Kingston 83). This helps the reader develop not only an understanding of the people in Kingston’s life, but of their relationship with her and the effect they had on