Maxine Hong Kingston's Memoir, the Woman Warrior, Term Paper

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Maxine Hong Kingston's memoir, the Woman Warrior, may be considered a microcosm of the work as a whole. The section "No Name Woman" incorporates the recurring themes of silence, invisibility, ghosts and using words as weapons.

It is argued, that the story's central theme is the process of "finding a personal voice" (Ling). This is mainly about the Aunt, but also about the mother and the narrator. It is a combination of three female characters each trying to find a voice and fighting against silence, some by choice such as the narrator, some by force, such as the mother, that makes this a powerful theme.

Silence is especially important in the story in relation to women, women are not expected to be outspoken but to live in the background, not expressing their feelings and more importantly, not being expected to have feelings, "the work of preservation demands that the feelings playing about in one's guts not be turned into action" (Kingston).

The silence theme is also linked to the words as weapons theme.

Firstly, the villagers use words as weapons to push the aunt to suicide.

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Even more importantly, words are a weapon used against the ghost of the aunt, with the mother refusing to speak the aunt's name. This is a continual punishment for the aunt as well as for the mother, with the mother living in denial of the aunt's actions.

The narrator uses words as a weapon where she goes against her mother and brings the aunt's story back to life by writing about it. This telling of the story incorporates the voice of the aunt, the mother and the narrator. It is this that gives the story its power, not the story itself, but seeing the story from these three different angles (Chatman).

Looking at the story in this way, words are a weapon offering something to the reader. Just as the aunt was punished by silence, her story comes back alive where the narrator breaks this silence.

The concept of invisibility works on several different levels.

Firstly, the individual becomes invisible where the goals of the village as a whole are put above the needs of the individual….....

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