Sophia Chen
Ecomp 100
Essay #5
24 Oct 1996
Storytelling has helped humankind evolve
into a wiser species by allowing those with enough attentiveness and
intelligence to learn from the mistakes
of their predecessors. The Chinese
culture, like many others world wide, base their beliefs largely on stories
passed down from generation to generation.
Because stories are told and retold, alterations and even new versions
appear. Such is the case in " Fa Mu
Lan," for more than one version is known to exist to this day. Many times
the changes in a story are to put its message on a certain level for an
individual to understand. If the change
is to keep the message updated with society, the version would be a modernized
one. These stories affect the stories
with a flavor of their own personal character.
In The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston utilizes stories told to her
by her mother as a device to introduce readers to some aspect of her life. Kingston's mother pass down to her the wisdom
she has acquired from her mistakes throughout her life along with best hopes
and wishes.
The Woman Warrior is a story about the
life of Maxine Hong Kingston. It is easy
to see her identity from those memorable occurrences that she mentions throughout
her book, especially the stories her mother told her. The story of "Fa Mu Lan", for
example, teaches women to strive to be the best they can be. It is a story about a woman warrior who takes
place of her father in battle and returns in victory as a heroine. It evidently shows that her mother tells this
story with her sincerest hopes and passions for her. Her mother wishes her to become more than
what it was hope for . Even though woman
in old China only grow up to be wives and slaves, she hopes and even dilutions
of grandeurs for her daughters thrive in their hearts. Story-telling has been an essential part of
their childhood.
Maxine Hong Kingston was told that her
aunt who committed adultery and brought shame, bad luck along with destruction
to her family. She committed suicide
because she could not face their families not tell who the father of the
children is. The shame brought about by
the incident was too much for her to bare.
The story was told to warn the girls from having a child before getting
married, as can be arrived at from this statement in The Woman Warrior: "
Whenever she [her mother] had to warn us about life, my mother told stories
that ran like this one, a story to grow up on.
She tested out strength to establish realities"(Kingston 5)
referring to her aunt. Hong did not
reveal the father of her daughter, possibly a rape or a forbidden love. From the story, the listener can examine those
mistakes make by the earlier generation and avoid possible similar situations.
The Woman Warrior is a book about lives of
Chinese American women, their struggles, hardships, hopes and joy. Hong's story, however focuses on the stories
her mother had told her in her youth.
Hong tell these stories to shed light on the Chinese culture, mind set,
etiquette. This is a book of the
bibliography of a woman through the ups and downs of her mothers tales. She provided the reader and opportunity to
experience those same stories that
affected her so much in her childhood.
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