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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