The Theme of Silence in Woman Warrior - Critical Essay

Introduction

Many people consider silence as the best weapon for dealing with challenging life situations but the experience of discrimination of whatever form can make one be even the most silent of persons. In The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingston explores the theme of silence and how it impacts on the life of Americans of Chinese descent. The author propagates the idea of speaking little in new environments even in harrowing circumstances so as to study such environment before making verbal reactions. Throughout the text, Kingston uses cultural experiences to highlight the unique position that Chinese-American women occupy in society as well as reveal reactions of Chinese-Americans in dealing with societal issues in the context of cultural duality.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Kingston's book portrays Chinese immigrants as individuals who are guarded against many aspects of life by society. For instance, she asserts that first generation Chinese Americans are policed by the cultural norms. As a result, these minorities embrace silent as a weapon against disruptions on their new community. More often than not, it is the Chinese-American children who are burdened with the community's silence because it is an embodiment of the individual belonging to the Chinese community. This implies that even the children born in the United States are bound to continue with the 'confined' way of life despite the challenging environment in the new American community. In the book, Kingston is seen as a naturally quiet person who is socially awkward. Consequently, it does not surprise many to find that much of Kingston's memoir is about the writer trying to find her own voice thus countering the silence that has been imposed on her life by society.

Remaining silent is a product of the social interactions that people experience on a daily basis. In the book, the author suggests that the theme of silence is advanced close persons in one's life. For instance, Kingston's mother enhances the idea of silence. This can be seen in her threat to Kingston, where she threatens to cut her tongue to make her talkative. However, according to Kingston, this is ironical since her mother wants her to be silent, explaining the reason for the desire to cut the daughter's tongue. It is, therefore, surprising that Kingston begins to narrate stories about her community with pride eventually. The act of writing her memoir becomes a gateway to the discovery of her voice by raising her concerns over the issues affecting women and girls, especially those of Chinese descent.

Furthermore, silence is prevalent in every aspect of the writer's life. Maxine recalls how as Chinese-American girls, they had to whisper for them to be American feminine. Many a time, this led to their silence due to the anxiety and uncertainty about their desire to acquire acceptable oral speech as Chinese-Americans (Kingston 172). This took a toll on her in the classrooms as she faced the conflict between keeping quiet and talking. As a result, she had to find a solution between these two antagonistic situations- being a respectful and quiet Chinese girl who valued her village and heroically representing it without knowledge of the village. On the other hand, she had to assimilate into an American girl who must be quiet to create a persona with a unique voice to be valued in the larger Chinese-American society (Kingston 172-73). Considering the highlighted experiences, the book highlights personal conflict within young girls with diverse cultural background and how such conflicts affect their actions and wellbeing in society.

Besides the hindrances of family and society, Kingston faces challenges of belonging. As a Chinese-American from Chinese immigrant parents, she tries to understand her parents' world and to infuse the ancient culture with the contemporary American society. The experience expounds on her sense of lack of belonging- a mixed personality and split-personality, highlighting her lack of belonging to either culture or environment. This leads to silence on one hand while on the other, it makes her talk about it or narrate her experience to understand her heritage.

Cultural dichotomy imparts opposing ideas in Kingston, making her identity float between cultural boundaries. From her mother's anecdotes, silence is imposed on her, resulting in her struggle to balance the Asian-American identity. Through the observations and examination of stories from No Name aunt, interactions between aunt and uncle Moon Orchid, Kingston learns that she can be forced to be silent by other people. This is made possible through threats of turning Kingston into a ghost, causing the mother to warn her sternly. The extent of the danger of the mother shows the extent of how cultural norms have been ingrained in certain groups of people.

The repeated attempts to impose silence results in reactions that seek to neutralize the impact of society. By narrating about the schoolgirl who refuses to speak at her school and the Fa Mu Lan legend, Kingston discovers silence to be a protection and power tool. Conversely, she must balance between the two 'silences' to subordinate femininity idea to create a new third sphere where she can move past America and China and accommodate both the current culture and her heritage. Also, her sister was silent for a long time-three years in addition to Kingston experiencing a silent period. In fact, during her childhood, she took a long period of being silent and not saying anything when she joined kindergarten-only speaking at home and a few occasions in school. She narrates that during this period, she devoted the years to painting, covering her school paintings with cover houses layers, sunflowers (Kingston 149). Despite all that, she starts to speak later; finding another way of expressing herself through writing, thereby solving her identity problem and establishing a new identity of a Chinese American, beginning to demand her rights thus countering the silence.

Conclusion

In summation, through the theme of silence, Kingston vividly paints the immigrants' life in the United States. By concentrating on silence, the book reveals the harsh working environment for Chinese immigrants, the socio-economic problems and the ethical dilemma they have to endure in a new environment which is riddled with racing racial discrimination. By expounding on all these, Kingston denotes silence in different forms and shows how silence can be used as a weapon to fight inequality in new societies.

Works Cited

Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts. New York :Vintage Books, 1989.