Woman Warrior Myths

In literature authors often use literary forms and mediums such as, illustrations and images, talk story and legends. But why do authors add such forms and styles in their contemporary texts? Well, the answer can be found in the literary works of Mine Okubo Citizen 13600, Maxine Hong Kingston The Woman Warrior and Le Thi Diem Thuy The Gangster We are All Looking For– all three writers uses theses forms as a way to give the readers a sense of the characters development as an Asian American. Okubo’s drawings give visualization about her struggle in America during the time of political strife. Kingston uses talk –story and legends as a way to illustrate her problems of growing up as a second-generation immigrant and her difficulties with her
For example, her mother tells her the story about her aunt and how it impacted her life: “Whenever she had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on & Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don't humiliate us. You wouldn't like to be forgotten as if you had never been born. (4). From the passage, the mother story talk centered on the horrors of the action and the disapproval that lead the aunt to obscurity. The story gives no details about the kind of woman the aunt was or what her motivations might have been. The readers get a strong view about how the narrator feels, which is afraid because she is haunted by the ghost of this forgotten aunt, and she feels the need to better understand the aunt. Since the aunt has officially been forgotten she cannot ask her parents for more information about her, thus she speculates. Furthermore, this story goes on to impact the narrator sense of self because her speculations about the aunt’s desire to be stunning in the eyes of man and how it lead to her downfall, makes the narrator have fears about being attractive to boys, even though she would like to go on dates she decides that being a sister is more reasonable. The second is the legend of Fu Mu Lan, which taught the narrator to not be this docile creature but a creature who
The father legend as a “gangster” starts when he and his mother met: “ When my mother a Catholic schoolgirl from the south decided to marry my father, a Buddhist gangster from the North, her parents disowned her. This is in the photograph, though it is not visible to the eye. If it were, it would be a deep impression across the soft dirt of my grandparents’ courtyard. Her father chased her out of the house beating her with the same broom, she had used everyday of her life, from the time she could stand up and sweep until that very morning that she was cased away” (79). From the passage, the readers get a sense that the narrator is expressing the longing she feels for the gangster father that she used to know. The narrator views the father a person who does not follow the traditional conventions, thus she wants to be this gangster figure: “When I grow up I am going to be the gangster we are all looking for” (93). The gangster figure plays a role on the narrator identity because this figure makes her want to be a rebellious person who is independent. She is claiming some type of power being a gangster because she feels powerless due to her family struggles in America. Furthermore, by running away get to be this gangsta because she has freedom. The gangster legend also takes a toll on the father because when Ma calls Ba a gangster, he