A Critique of The Woman Warrior, a Book by Maxine Hong Kingston

What is a warrior? By definition, a warrior is a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness We typically do not think of women when we hear the word ”warrior“ but many of the women in The Woman Warrior have these qualities. In the book, Maxine Hong Kingston writes about her experiences as a first» generation Chinese girl growing up in America, Maxine struggles to find her own identity in a culture where girls are expected to be docile and submissive.

Her mother, Brave Orchid, moves to America and must support her family in an unfamiliar place. Even one of the most famous female warriors in history, Fa Mulan, had to overcome obstacles. Maxine, Brave Orchid, and Fa Mulan, through intelligence, hard work, and perseverance, rose above stereotypes, and despite cultural expectations, become true woman warriors.

Fa Mulan is a woman warrior not only because is she a warrior in the literal sense, but because she became one in a society at a time when women were looked down upon.

She demonstrates the perfect fusion between woman and warrior. Mulan leaves home at a young age in order to train so that she could avenge her village one day. As part of her training, she spends years alone on the mountain of the white tigers. She could only eat roots and vegetables and drink melted snow when she is not fasting. But she demonstrates courage and determination in her “exile” and showed the two old people that she was ready to learn to fight.

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During her training, she gets her period, symbolizing the fact that she is truly a woman now. But that does not hinder her, “menstrual days did not interrupt my training; I was as strong as any other day”(P. 30) Being a woman does not hold her back.

Even after all that hard work and time away from her family, the battle hasn‘t even started, She returns to her family where she takes her father‘s place in the army and vows to avenge her village. In the war, she is a general and does really well. She meets her husband and before long, she becomes pregnant, She says.”Now when I was naked, I was a strange human being indeed- words carved on my back and the baby large in the front.” Her scars represent revenge while her pregnancy represents womanhood. After she gives birth. Mulan brings her baby into battle, killing people while protecting her child at the same time. This symbolizes that she is what society expects her to be. a mother. while also being what society does not expect her to be, a warrior. Brave Orchid is the second woman warrior in the book. When her husband was in America and sending her money, she made it a point to put that money to good use by gotng to medical school.

She became one of the smartest students through hard work. Though she is smart, Brave Orchid “suspected she did not have the right kind of brains“  to not have to try very hard to get good grades. She studied far in advance in order to be so intelligent, After she graduated, she became a respected doctor who could support herself. Brave Orchid tells Maxine, ”When I stepped out of my sedan chair, the villagers said, ‘Ahhh,’ at my good shoes and my long gown,..You have no idea how much I have fallen coming to America,” But as we can see from that last part, Brave Orchid level in society has been downgraded in America. She toils in the laundromat and tomato fields, a far cry from a doctor. But she does all this for her children. Maxine remembers her mother “could work at the laundry from 6:30 am. until midnight” and Brave Orchid tells her,”l put you babies in the clean places at the laundromat, as far from the germs that fumed out of the ghosts’ clothes as l could.”

Though Brave Orchid is in a new country, she never forgets that she has to remain strong in order to survive. Maxine becomes a woman warrior by overcoming obstacles and finding her own voice. Maxine and her mother share a very complicated relationship. They each grew up in two completely different cultures, Brave Orchid would tell Maxine to do things she didn‘t want to do, like asking for compensation candy when the drugstore mailed them the wrong package. Maxine doesn’t understand why she has to do it, but she is forced to do it anyway. Eventually, she stands up to her mother by launching a tirade at her. She tells her,”l’m going away…|’m smart. I can make a living and take care of myself…l can’t stand living here anymore.” After all her mother’s putdowns, Maxtne has had enough. But she not only expresses her feelings to mother, she eventually expresses it to the world.

When she was young, Maxine had trouble speaking in public. Part of it was due to her not being able to speak English, the other part of it due to her shyness. But by writing this book, she has found her voice. In the chapter “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe,” Maxine writes about Ts’ai Yen who was captured by barbarians and lived with them before being brought back to her people. She returned with a poem called “Eighteen Stanzas for a Barbarian Reed Pipe” for her people. Maxine sees herself as a modern version of the poetess. It is her duty to write Women Warrior so that the “ghosts” in America will understand where she comes from. Maxine also compares herself to Fa Mulan saying,”What we have in common are the words on our backs.”

Though their accomplishments are quite different, what they have in common is that they both become warriors in their ways. Maxine starts out as a shy, silent girl but eventually blossoms into a strong woman who finds a voice through her writing. Fa Mulan, Brave Orchid, and Maxine all became women warriors by overcoming obstacles set by society. Mulan can fight and defeat men in battle, Brave Orchid can keep her big family afloat in a new land. Maxine became one of the first authors to write books about the experiences of Chinese-Americans and blazed a trail. Through wit, diligence. and determination, they demonstrate that Chinese women are capable of great things.