Life

Family

• Father: Tom Hong, a first-generation immigrant from China, owned a laundry in Stockton, California.
• Mother: Ying Lan (Chew) Hong ("Brave Orchid"), first-generation immigrant from China
• Husband: Earll Kingston, actor
• Son: Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei, born in 1964

Home

• Stockton, California
• Berkeley, California
• Honolulu, Hawaii
• Oakland, California

Chronology

• 1940: born in Stockton, California
• 1962: graduates from the University of California, Berkeley
• 1962: marries Earll Kingston, a classmate at Berkeley
• 1964: gives birth to son, Joseph Lawrence Chung Mei
• 1965: earns a teaching certificate and begins teaching high school
• 1967: moves to Hawaii
• 1976: The Woman Warrior: Memoires of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
• begins teaching English at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu
• 1980: China Men
• 1981: receives Guggenheim Fellowship
• begins teaching at University of California, Berkeley
• 1989: Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book

Issues and themes

Asian-American culture

• "My subconscious is Chinese, isn't that weird? At night in my dreams I speak to Earl in Chinese" (Kingston, quoted in Brownmiller 214).

Autobiography 
Creativity

• "And majoring in English interfered with my writing. It was all I could do to write those formal papers on literary criticism. I felt that if I stayed to get a master's degree it would destroy the writing. Formal literary criticism made me look at my own writing too critically. I would tear the page apart before I created it" (Kingston, quoted in Brownmiller 211).
• "This was a book that I started to write when I was ten years old, but I didn't have the words. Twenty-five years later I was able to do it. In 1973 Earl and I took a vacation on Lanai--it's a very small pineapple island with one hotel and just twelve rooms. One night we were expecting to watch a movie, but the hotel's projector broke down! I had nothing to do--so I wrote out a two-page outline for the book, in pencil! At first I thought I could do it all in one volume, the men and the women, but the men's stories didn't fit in with the women's stories. The mythology is so different--the men's sotries were in conflict with the women's stories. So I decided that the men's book would be a companion volume" (214-215).

Family and ancestry

• "You know, people ask me is Brave Orchid truly that large in real life, or is that my poetic license. But in truth I calmed her down for the book. She is even larger than that" (Kingston, quoted in Brownmiller 211).

Language 
Men in China and America 
Narrative technique 
Women in China and America

Work

The Woman Warrior: "No Name Woman"

• What is the Gold Mountain? What is the origin of this name?
• Why does Kingston's mother tell her the story of her aunt? What message does it send? Why is the aunt a "No Name Woman"?
• Kingston writes: "Those of us in the first American generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America" (5). Consider this statement and the subtitle of the book: "A Girlhood Among Ghosts."
• "Talk-story," a phrase Kingston borrowed from a Hawaiin pidgin language (Brownmiller 214), describes a practice very important in this book. What is "talk-story," and what role does it play in Kingston's life?
• What is the status of a woman in the Chinese culture Kingston describes? Defend your answer with examples from the book. Consider the importance of appearance, usefulness, and self-discipline.
• How does Kingston tell the story of her aunt? Why do you suppose she tells it this way?
• What is more important in the Chinese culture Kingston describes, the individual or the community? Why might this question be particularly interesting to a woman who grew up in the United States?
• Analyze Kingston's description of space in her description of her aunt. Why does she focus on space?
• Why does Kingston say that she has participated in her aunt's punishment?

The Woman Warrior: "White Tigers"

• How does the warrior woman change after she gives birth? Why?
• Why does Kingston say, "My American life has been such a disappointment"?
• Consider the importance of language in this section. For example, analyze the act the warrior woman's parents perform on her back, the "Chinese word for the female I," and the last paragraph of the section.
• "Night after night my mother would talk-story until we fell asleep," Kingston writes. "I couldn't tell where the stories left and the dreams began, her voice the voice of the heroines in my sleep" (19). What is the significance of this passage in relation to the novel itself?
• Why do you suppose the notion of the woman warrior figures so prominently in Kingston's imagination?
• How does the woman warrior develop? What does she learn to do?
• Kingston writes: "Unlike tigers, dragons are so immense, I would never see one in its entirety" (28). How might this statement serve as a metaphor for something larger or more significant than dragons?
• "In the beginning, she seems to be writing about herself. I think that she is using the story of the woman warrior as a metaphor for her struggles in the United States, particularly her battle to establish an identity" (Hundley 11/20/96).
• "Her upbrining as a swordswoman also displays her desire to have as much power as men because she attempts, successfully, to attain the respect and success in life that men are too easily given the opportunity to achieve" (Daugherty 11/21/96).
• "The depth to which [Kingston] explained the training she experienced from the elderly man and woman on the mountain suggests a more metaphysical approach to the issue of empowerment. Rather than overcoming adverse reaction by society, and her community in particular, to the advent of an independent, strong, and free-thinking Chinese-American woman, Kingston accomplishes the aforementioned transformation in the dream sequence of the narrative. The narrative and its connection to the subconscious cannot be overlooked. Kingston deals with empowerment and status, but also defines the immense resistance expressed by the Chinese community in America, and by the male component of the power structure in America. By using the dream to arrive at her independence, Kingston speaks to the subsconscious awakening of women who break through society's conventions" (Premakumar 11/19/96).
• Kingston "goes into a story of a great warrior woman who fought for revenge and also became a mother. This is a life that Kingston herself would like to have lived" (Aron 11/19/96).

The Woman Warrior: "Shaman"

• Who are the ghosts Kingston describes in "Shaman," and why does she call them that? Why do ghosts play such an important role in this section and in the book as a whole?
• Analyze the description of Kingston's mother's life in China. In particular, what function does the discussion of slaves serve? Why does Kingston envy her mother's slave?
• How does Kingston depict her mother in this section? In what ways does this depiction fit in some of the book's larger themes?
• Why do you suppose Kingston includes so much information about food?
• How would you describe Kingston's relationship with her mother?
• Kingston "writes from the perspective of a young, Chinese-American girl living in San Francisco post-World War 2. As a result of this, white people are referred to as ghosts, and many of the Chinese beliefs shine through the eyes of this young narrator. This is one explanation of why the reader cannot distinguish between myth and reality. Many young children believe everything that is told to them, outrageous or not. It is because of their wild and active imaginations that this little girl and her friends believe in the ghosts and the woman warriors of old" (Baldwin 11/19/96).

The Woman Warrior: A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe

• What does Kingston do to the little girl in the lavatory and why?
• Kingston writes: "The other Chinese girls did not talk either, so I knew the silence had to do with being a Chinese girl." Why are the Chinese girls silent, and what are the consequences of this silence?
• What is the difference between the American and Chinese schools? Which do you think Kingston prefers?
• How does Kingston react to her mother's order to demand candy from the druggist? Why? How is an understanding of this incident central to an understanting of the book?
• Analyze Kingston's assessment of her time in bed with a mysterious illness: "It was the best year and a half of my life. Nothing happened."
• "They would not tell us children," Kingston writes of the older Chinese, "because we had been born among ghosts, were taught by ghosts, and were outselves ghost-like. They called us a kind of ghost." What is the significance of this passage?
• How do you explain Kingston's urge to confess things to her mother?
• Analyze Kingston's outburst among her family members. What is the source of her frustration? Why is the final portion, in which she complains about talk-story, particularly significant?
• How does Kingston characterize her own perspective on the world? How is it different from that of her mother and other Chinese immigrants? What is the tone of Kingston's description of this perspective?
• Analyze the importance of language in this section and in the entire book.
• What is the significance of the final story?

The Woman Warrior: General

• "Although classified as nonfiction/literature, it is difficult to categorize the narrative of Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior as conventional in any stretch of the imagination. One of the highly effective and ultra-unique narrative qualities she utilizes in the work is her clever weaving of dream-like recollections, legends, and folk tales with linear progression of events of actual reality. In mid-sentence or mid-paragraph, Kingston alternates between what should be perceived as real and what could be real by approaching both with seriousness and giving each credibility and worth. For example, she tells of the Chinese legend of how white crane boxing was initially invented by a woman who was taught by the spirit of an actual crane. This precedes the reader's following of a girl up into the mountains, where she is taught to be a woman warrior only to have Kingston finish off by conveying memories of her years at Berkeley during the Vietnam conflict. The events are so closely associated that it is difficult to distinguish reality. The purpose of this is to suspend the reader's disbelief just long enough to supply credibility to Kingston's thoughts and ultimately contribute to her wish and dream fulfillment by giving imagined events an ounce of truth" (Daigneault 11/21/96).
• "In Maxine Hong Kingston's work The Woman Warrior, the technique of several different narrators from several different points of view is used to tell the story of a woman's struggle with identity as a minority in American culture" (Butler 11/19/96).
• "Maxine Hong Kingston uses a very effective narrative technique in her writing. She combines legend with truth and past with present. By doing this she ties the American way of life in with the Chinese way of life. It is important to realize the two can coexist. We have been studying this in my anthropology class. When people come to America, they do not have be part of one culture or another; they can and will be part of both. This is a problem Americans, in particular, have trouble realizing. Anyway, the past integrated with the present is transitional and helps to bridge the gap. Thus far in the novel, each chapter begins with Kingston describing her mother telling a story. Then the book flashes back to that time; following the story, we are fast-forwarded to present day. Not only does it relate the two cultures, but the jumping around also kind of gives the effect of chaos. This is an important effect because Kingston felt a sense of confusion with identity, being Chinese-American" (Plonk 11/19/96).
• Kingston "manages to tell stories from many time periods while the reader feels as if the stories are occurring in the present. It is reminiscent of Poe's line, "Out of SPACE--out of TIME." Kingston digresses to the legend of the warrior woman, for example. During this story, there is no sense that the action is occuring in the past. It is very present, very real. This tone could be the result of Kingston's use of the first person in the case of the warrior woman. She does not write, 'The warrior woman did this or that.' Instead, it is as if the warrior woman is speaking to the reader herself. 'I was a bug riding on a dragon's forehead as it roams through space. Its speed so different from my speed that I feel the dragon solid and immobile.' It is possible that this suggests that Kingston is that warrior woman. But in telling the story of her mother, Kingston uses the third person. Unlike the story of the warrior, Kingston is not suggesting that she experienced these events. Still, the sense of the action occurring in the present is still there. This may be due to the great detail that is used in depicting her mother's story. 'Her fingers and palms became damp, shrinking at the ghost's thick short hair.' To have such a grasp on the details of an event requires one of three things: to have been there, to have been told about it over and over again, or to have made the whole thing up. Maybe for Kingston it's a little of each. She combines some of her experiences with the stories that her mother has repeated to her dozens of times. Then she adds her own embellishments to fit the themes of the book" (Lasher 11/19/96).
• "The multiple voices used over the course of the novel let the reader get a glimpse of the story from several different angles. Some narrators are more reliable than others; some act as storytellers (in 'White Tigers'), and we don't know whether what we're hearing is just a story or dream, or something that actually contributes to the plot of the novel. Kingston as a little girl is a more effective recounter of actual events that take place, although her cultural separation from the society she is in makes it difficult to decipher what is going on, as in the example of the garbage ghost. An additional theme I thought was interesting in this novel is one that was present in Poe's works. In 'White Tigers' and the talk-stories, we don't know where the true narration ends and where the dream begins. The story gradually becomes less and less believable" (Minis 11/19/96).
• Kingston lets "the reader experience 'talk-story' firsthand so that the reader may then be able to relate to Kingston's own experiences with her mother's talk-story" (Wallen 12/5/96).

Bibliography

Life

• Brownmiller, Susan. "Susan Brownmiller Talks With Maxine Hong Kingston." Madamoiselle. March 1977. 148-216. Courtesy of Stephanie Wallen.
• Ng, Franklin, ed. The Asian American Encyclopedia. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1995.

Issues and themes

• Brownmiller, Susan. "Susan Brownmiller Talks With Maxine Hong Kingston." Madamoiselle. March 1977. 148-216. Courtesy of Stephanie Wallen.
• Cheung, King-Kok. Articulate Silences: Hisaye Yamamoto, Maxine Hong Kingston, Joy Kogawa. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993.
• Kim, Elaine H. Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social Context. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982.
• Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. Approaches to Teaching Kingston's "The Woman Warrior." New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1991.
• Ling, Amy. Between Worlds: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry. New York: Pergamon Press, 1990.
• Smith, Sidonie. A Poetics of Women Autobiography: Marginality and the Fictions of Self-Representation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Interpretation of works

• Aron, Chad. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. November 19, 1996.
• Baldwin, Kara. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. November 19, 1996.
• Butler, Chris. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. November 19, 1996.
• Daigneault, Ralph. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. November 21, 1996.
• Daugherty, Walt. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. November 21, 1996.
• Hundley, Ann. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. November 20, 1996.
• Lasher, Todd. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. November 19, 1996.
• Minis, Sarah. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. November 19, 1996.
• Plonk, Sara . Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. November 19, 1996.
• Premakumar, Raj. Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. November 19, 1996.
• Wallen, Stephanie . Journal for English 28. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. December 5, 1996.