Voice in The Woman Warrior

In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston struggles to find her own voice in her family’s history of talking-story. She has developed her way of doing it by using a different voice. She reclaims her traditions and makes it American in her talk-stories. Talk-stories usually are cautionary tales, didactic moral lessons, or opinions that have a healing effect. Fantastic qualities are fused with realistic ones such as the vanquishing of ghosts. In her version of the woman warrior, Fa Mulan, she dramatizes the abuse of woman by including the carvings on her back and the glorification of them by making her give birth while fighting with her army. By changing the original story, Kingston not only empowers herself, but also women. She does not allow herself to be enslaved to her taboo history such as her No Name Aunt and the silence of women either. She disarms herself from the subjection of her culture and refuses to let the talk-stories cripple her from having her own voice. She writes in the perspective of her aunt, mother, and finally herself. Throughout the novel, Kingston shows that she can revere and violate the stories and legends all in one text. Silence was a result of her insecure identity as a child. By enthralling in the quest to find her voice physically, she was also able to discover how to use it not only as her own, but for all women.

Wendy Tu