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Harmony and Balance between the Orient and the Occident in the Woman Warrior

Received: 28 March 2014     Accepted: 16 April 2014     Published: 30 April 2014
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Abstract

Maxine Hong Kingston is one of the most famous female Chinese American writers in 20th century. Her famous novel The Woman Warrior confirmed her status in American literature. The novel describes the heroine’s life as a Chinese American and depicts the psychological course and conflict when confronting the pressure from both gender and culture. This book indicates Kingston’s pursuit of the harmony and balance in a variety of aspects. This paper mainly focuses on the harmony and balance between East and West. The first part deals with the theme of mother and daughter’s relation, in which the mother represents the traditional Chinese culture while the daughter struggles among the conflicts of eastern and western culture. Secondly, the novel conveys the ethnic women’s appeal by talking about the texts of the novel. The author also reveals the Chinese Americans’ pursuit of self-identity. Kingston was writing with an intense aspiration of speaking for the Chinese. The third part is the theme of silence and articulation in which Kingston tries to reconstruct their identity by breaking up the silence and articulating their appeal. Kingston also put forward a dream of globalization and unity in her novel.

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 2, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijla.20140203.11
Page(s) 60-64
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2014. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

The Woman Warrior, Chinese American, Harmony and Balance, Identity

References
[1] Abel, Elizabeth, Marianne Hirsch, and Elizabeth Langland, eds. The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development. Hanover: UP of New England, 1983.
[2] Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th ed. Boston: Heinle, 1999.
[3] Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. London & New York: Routledge, 2000.
[4] Buckley, Jerome Hamilton. Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1974.
[5] Chin, Frank et al. Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers. Mentor Edition. New York: Pemguin Group, 1991.
[6] Clayton, Jay & Rothstein, Eric. Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History. Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.
[7] Derrida, Jacque. Positions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
[8] E.D Huntely. Maxine Hong Kingston A Critical Companion. Greenwood Press, 2001.
[9] Feng, Pin-chia. The Female Bildungsroman by Toni Morrison and Maxine Hong Kingston: A Postmodern Reading. New York: Peter Lang, 1998.
[10] Fuderer, Laura Sue. The Female Bildungsroman in English: An Annotated Bibliography of Criticism. New York: The Modern Language America, 1990.
[11] Gao Yan. The Art of Parody: Maxine Hong Kingston’s Use of Chinese Sources. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1996.
[12] Grice, Helena. Negotiating Identities: An Introduction to Asian American Women Writing. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2002.
[13] Helen Grice. Maxine Hong Kingston. Manchester: Manchester University Press 2006.
[14] Jaworski, Adam. The Power of Silence: Social and Pragmatic Perspectives. New York: Sage Publications Inc.,1993.
[15] Li, David LeiWei. Imaging the Nation—Asia American Literature and Cultural Consent. California: Stanford University Press, 1998.
[16] Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. “`Growing with Stories’: Chinese American Identities, Textual Identities.” Teaching American Ethnic Literatures: Nineteen Essays.
[17] Kingston Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior--Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghost. New York: Random House, 1977.
[18] Mandel, Barrett John. "The Autobiographer's Art". Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 27 (Winter 1968).
[19] Maureen Sabine. Maxine Hong Kingston's Broken Book of Life: An Intertextual Study of The Woman Warrior and China Men HONOLULU: University of Hawaii Press, 2004.
[20] Plett, H. Intertextuality (Research in Text Theory). Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991.
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  • APA Style

    Zhang Qiang. (2014). Harmony and Balance between the Orient and the Occident in the Woman Warrior. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 2(3), 60-64. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20140203.11

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    ACS Style

    Zhang Qiang. Harmony and Balance between the Orient and the Occident in the Woman Warrior. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2014, 2(3), 60-64. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20140203.11

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    AMA Style

    Zhang Qiang. Harmony and Balance between the Orient and the Occident in the Woman Warrior. Int J Lit Arts. 2014;2(3):60-64. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20140203.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijla.20140203.11,
      author = {Zhang Qiang},
      title = {Harmony and Balance between the Orient and the Occident in the Woman Warrior},
      journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
      volume = {2},
      number = {3},
      pages = {60-64},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20140203.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20140203.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20140203.11},
      abstract = {Maxine Hong Kingston is one of the most famous female Chinese American writers in 20th century. Her famous novel The Woman Warrior confirmed her status in American literature. The novel describes the heroine’s life as a Chinese American and depicts the psychological course and conflict when confronting the pressure from both gender and culture. This book indicates Kingston’s pursuit of the harmony and balance in a variety of aspects. This paper mainly focuses on the harmony and balance between East and West. The first part deals with the theme of mother and daughter’s relation, in which the mother represents the traditional Chinese culture while the daughter struggles among the conflicts of eastern and western culture. Secondly, the novel conveys the ethnic women’s appeal by talking about the texts of the novel. The author also reveals the Chinese Americans’ pursuit of self-identity. Kingston was writing with an intense aspiration of speaking for the Chinese. The third part is the theme of silence and articulation in which Kingston tries to reconstruct their identity by breaking up the silence and articulating their appeal. Kingston also put forward a dream of globalization and unity in her novel.},
     year = {2014}
    }
    

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    AB  - Maxine Hong Kingston is one of the most famous female Chinese American writers in 20th century. Her famous novel The Woman Warrior confirmed her status in American literature. The novel describes the heroine’s life as a Chinese American and depicts the psychological course and conflict when confronting the pressure from both gender and culture. This book indicates Kingston’s pursuit of the harmony and balance in a variety of aspects. This paper mainly focuses on the harmony and balance between East and West. The first part deals with the theme of mother and daughter’s relation, in which the mother represents the traditional Chinese culture while the daughter struggles among the conflicts of eastern and western culture. Secondly, the novel conveys the ethnic women’s appeal by talking about the texts of the novel. The author also reveals the Chinese Americans’ pursuit of self-identity. Kingston was writing with an intense aspiration of speaking for the Chinese. The third part is the theme of silence and articulation in which Kingston tries to reconstruct their identity by breaking up the silence and articulating their appeal. Kingston also put forward a dream of globalization and unity in her novel.
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Author Information
  • School of Foreign Languages, Shandong Jiaotong University, Jinan, China

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