CRAVING FOR A NEW BELONGING: QUEST FOR IDENTITY AND BREAKING SILENCE IN MAXINE HONG KINGSTON’S THE WOMAN WARRIOR
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29121/shodhkosh.v5.i6.2024.2971Keywords:
Culture, Identity, Racism, Diaspora, DisplacementAbstract [English]
Maxine Hong Kingston, one of the most outspoken contemporary feminist writers, skilfully uses autobiography to create identity in her famous work, ‘The Woman Warrior’. The book in a poignant manner brings out her traumatic experiences when she tries to find a place and create an identity as an immigrant in another country. Chinese immigrant women in the United States had to face double oppression, both racial and sexual and adjusting to the new culture was a real challenge to them. There is an intermingling of fact and fiction, legend and myth and the book owes a lot to oral tradition and talk-story, as a means of self-expression where stories constantly change between tellings. Kingston becomes the voice of the silent, voiceless women and writing The Woman Warrior is a cathartic and emotional experience for her. By unfolding her past experiences through the vehicle of the Chinese talk-story, she regains strength and independence and achieves an individual voice and a personal place as a Chinese American woman in society.
References
Cheung, K.-K. (1998). Don’t tell: Imposed silences in The Color Purple and The Woman Warrior. PMLA, 103. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/462432
Davis, R. G. (2005). The self in the text versus the self as text: Asian American autobiographical strategies. In G. Huang (Ed.), Asian American literary studies. Edinburgh University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474469340-005
Fischer, M. J. M. (1986). Ethnicity and the post-modern arts of memory. In J. Clifford & G. Marcus (Eds.), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. University of California Press.
Kingston, M. H. (1991). Personal statement. In S. Geok-lin Lim (Ed.), Approaches to Teaching Kingston’s The Woman Warrior.
Kingston, M. H. (1977). The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. Knopf.
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