JC H2 Lit Group (with Cheryl and Nathan) paper on Woman Warrior- Maxine Hong Kingston

Tutorial Questions for The Woman Warrior (Week 2 – Week 4)

No Name Woman

1)    Storytelling is a way to consolidate one’s experience and values, thereby recording one’s cultural heritage and identity. It is also a way for Maxine to find her roots in the United States where she vacillate s??( intransitive verb meaning to sway through lack of equilibrium OR  to waver in mind, will, or feeling : hesitate in choice of opinions or courses ) between the Chinese community and the American Society.

a.    What are the Chinese values that exist in Maxine’s mind based on the story told about the No Name Woman?

Practicality of Chinese people

Pg 6 “i cannot ask that” “once and for all” - absolute, no nonsense

        “ the useful parts. she will add nothing unless powered by Necessity” “plants vegetable gardens rather than lawns, she carries the odd-shaped tomatoes home from the fields and eats food left for the gods” utility> ornament?? appearance vs reality? 

highlighted by “frivolous things, we used up energy” always payment, balance “paid in guilt” the idea of retribution absolutely linked “adultery is extravagance” again contrasting that chinese utility-using all parts of the animal to “prodigal”, meaning profuse or wasteful expenditure.

Pg 9: ‘All the married women blunt-cut their hair in flaps about their ears or pulled back in tight buns. No nonsense’

Shows that the Chinese women value practicality over attractiveness, as buns and blunt-cut hair are although unattractive, but practical as it will not get in their way of their daily work.

dehumanisation of babies? fetuses. “baby plugging up the well’, ‘eat the embryos’ “to have a daughter in starvation time was a waste enough” ties between families are so complicated in this book??

Pg 11 “to focus blurs, people shouted face to face and yelled from room to room”

Silence? Significance and effect of words, naming, identify. “words so strong and fathers so frail” pg 15 “a wrong word would incite the kinspeople even here. “

“Unless I see her life branching into mine, she gives me no ancestral help”

Believing that the story of her aunt is only worth her attention if it provides her with some sort of help. Shows practicality as she does not want to waste time if it does not benefit her in some

Low status of women

pg6 “To be a woman, to have a daughter in starvation time was waste enough”
- The Chinese view daughters as useless and a waste of money. Highlighting that females have a low social standing as compared to boys.

pg6 “Women in the old China did not choose.”
- Showing the subservient nature of women at that time. Women were expected to listen to the orders of men without complaining.

pg 7 “The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband. They both gave orders: she followed”
- Men are seen as commanding and women cannot go against their demands. Both men threaten and she complies to them both times. Shows consistency. Shows that she is not bounded by duty to her husband but to men in general. Highlights subservience of women to men.

Pg 7: “If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again next week”

Threatening of the aunt shows violence as a way to control women (scare tactic) and shows that men treat women like slaves, that ought to be punished severely (though physical violence or even death) if disobeying them.

pg7 “Daughters-in-law lived with their husband’s parents, not their own”
- Women follow after their husbands as men are seen as the one in charge of the relationship.

pg 10 “More attention to her looks than these pullings of hairs and pickings at spots would have caused gossip among the villagers”
- Women are not expected to take care of their looks and instead, focus on taking care of their family

Pg 15 “It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys”

Shows how the Chinese society is more accepting of males than females and that females are predestined to be inferior to that of boys just because of their gender.

Superstitious 

b.    What are the American values that you can infer from this story?

Sexuality vs sensuality “i hope that the man my aunt loved appreciated a smooth brow, that he wasn’t just a tits-and-ass man”

c.    How do the Chinese values impact on No Name Woman both mentally and behaviourally?

“His demand must have surprised, terrified him; she always did as she was told”
- Despite being terrified by the man’s demands, the No Name Woman chooses to adhere to the expectation of women in that period and listen to his commands. She gives in to his demands rather than fighting it. (link to low status of women?)

“If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again next week.”
- She listens to him despite the threats that she receives. Highlighting how she was powerless to go against his orders and gave in.

“She dug it out with a hot needle and washed the wound with peroxide”
- The No Name Woman paid close attention to her looks despite the expectation of her to focus on the family rather than looks.

pg5. “The next morning when i went for the water, I found her and the baby plugging up the family well”
- The No Name Woman knew fully well about the consequences her pregnancy brought and ultimately chose to end her life rather than to suffer from the villager’s judgment. In addition, she decided that her child would also suffer the same fate as her and treated as an outcast. Hence, she ended both of their lives together.

d.    How do the Chinese values impact on the village both mentally and behaviourally?

pg4 “As the villagers closed in, we could see that some of them, probably men and women we knew well, wore white masks”
- The villagers follow the Chinese values closely and view value as something higher than friendship ; choosing to punish the No Name Woman despite knowing her personally. Furthermore, the raid on her family shows the outright rejection of adultery and how much they condemn it.

e.    Why does Maxine want to tell this story? What purpose does she seek to 

achieve?

Pg 16 “but there is more to this silence: they want me to participate in their punishment. and i have. “ “swift raid” vs “deliberately forgetting” Hunger for “paper suits...eternity” vs “i alone devote pages of paper to her” she sees her aunt as a “forerunner” and herself as a “substitute??” “i am telling on her” Maxine wants to remember her aunt? maybe satisfy her hunger? 

 pg5 “Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you”
- Stories are used as a warning to inform Maxim that she may suffer the same fate as the No Name Woman if she engages in adultery and bring humiliation to her family.

2)    Last year, you learned that pursuing personal desire always comes into conflicts with societal norms. However, the manifestations of desire in No Name Woman are more complicated.

a.    How is desire presented in the story?

sexual desire

amourous desire

b.    Does Maxine give more than one perspective on desire? Why does she do so?

c.    Compare and contrast the different manifestations of desire in the story?

d.    How is it different from what you have learned last year? What are the similarities? What are the differences?