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Frontiers in Art Research, 2022, 4(11); doi: 10.25236/FAR.2022.041114.

Interpreting Silence and Voice in Kingston’s The Woman Warrior

Author(s)

Baiyu Yang

Corresponding Author:
Baiyu Yang
Affiliation(s)

Xi’an International Studies University, Xi'an, Shanxi, 710000, China

Abstract

The Woman Warrior mainly revolves around the narrator’s experience of “silence” and “voice” as a Chinese American woman, which reflects Kingston’s real experience in the process of growing up in pain and confusion, and it can also be said that it is a process in which she seeks her own cultural identity and the position for Chinese American women to settle down in American society. In analyzing Kingston’s memoir, this paper is concerned with how silence is enforced upon the female characters and how Kingston gives her own voice, and finally reconciles her Chinese and American identities as a Chinese American. 

Keywords

Chinese American, silence, identity, voice

Cite This Paper

Baiyu Yang. Interpreting Silence and Voice in Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. Frontiers in Art Research (2022) Vol. 4, Issue 11: 63-66. https://doi.org/10.25236/FAR.2022.041114.

References

[1] Braithwaite, Charles. “Communicative Silence: A Cross-Cultural Study of Basso’s Hypothesis.” Cultural Communication and Intercultural Contact, Lawrence Erlbaum, 1990, pp. 321-327.

[2] Cheung, King-Kok. “‘Don’t Tell’: Imposed Silences in The Color Purple and The Woman Warrior.” PMLA, vol. 103, no. 2, Modern Language Association, 1988, pp. 162-74.

[3] Danahay, Martin A. “Breaking the Silence: Symbolic Violence and the Teaching of Contemporary ‘Ethnic’ Autobiography.” College Literature 18.3 (1991): 64-79. Web. 20 Feb 2010. 

[4] Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. Alfred A. Knopf, 1976. 

[5] Ling, Amy. Between Worlds: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry. Pergamon Press, 1990.

[6] Morante, Linda. “From Silence to Song: The Triumph of Maxine Hong Kingston.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 9.2 (1987): 78-82. Web. 20 Feb 2010.