Maxine Hong Kingstons No Name Woman Essay examples -- Chinese Society

Maxine Hong Kingstons No Name WomanA highly untrue text whose non-fiction label gives the appearance of being an actual representation of Asian American experience in the broader public sphere. (Gloria Chun, The High Note)Such a disparaging remark about the misleading nature of Maxine Hong Kingstons The Woman Warrior has been readily refuted, notably by Leilani Nishime, who proposes in her essay Engendering Genre... that it is a text that transcends genre curb it challenges traditional definitions of genre and demands redefinitions. Whatever the case, No Name Woman (NNW) is remarkable in the way the reader is given a candid social interpretation in the guise of an intriguing tale of scandal and oppression. In a vivid representation of traditional Chinese society, Kingston artfully manipulates perspective, or more than aptly character drop (Chatman, Reading Narrative Fiction 130), to reflect the culture of an entire society in the vicissitudes of one familys life.The opening scen e itself suggests the twist of the entire story we are immediately presented with a tragic story-in-a-story, or framed-narrative (Chatman, 97), of the narrators adulterous aunt. Somehow, the events viewed in retrospect through the eyes of the narrators traditional, conservative mother seem skewed and moralistic, rendered with an objective, instructive voice which complements the primary narrators didactic tones as she takes over the discussion from her mother following the opening tale. A little later on, the filter switches almost seamlessly over to that of the aunt, in a radically different retelling of her tale by the (primary) narrator (14). Such smooth filter-character transitions occur frequently throughout the text... ...le viewpoints, co-occur timelines and a dominating, though largely implied narrators (possibly authors) slant work together to present Kingstons unique view of gender roles and their assimilation into Chinese-American culture a far-reaching yet cozy proj ection of her history, society and self.BibliographyChatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca Cornell UP, 1980.Reading Narrative Fiction. Ed. Seymour Chatman. New York Macmillan, 1993.Chun, Gloria. The High Note of the Barbarian reed Pipe Maxine Hong Kingston. Journal of Ethnic Studies 19.3 (Fall 1991) 85-95.Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior Memoirs Of A Girlhood Among Ghosts. London Picador, 1981.Nishime, LeiLani. Engendering genre gender and nationalism in China Men and The Woman Warrior. MELUS20.1 (Spring 95) 67-85.