In No Name Woman, Maxine can see herself as a product of her mother’s influence, for she tells Maxine a story about her aunt and how she struggles after being cast out by her village. With this story, Maxine attempts to learn more about her family’s old customs and traditions, which she knows solely from her mother. The “talk-story” about her aunt’s life also servers as the scenery for Kingston’s own experience growing up as a Chinese-American. This is because, Maxine feels cut in half as if her new American world were to pull her apart from her original Chinese customs and traditions. As her mother describes Chinese society, Maxine imagines an austere and strict way of life. She pictures a place in which people are unable to live their own private lives. In many ways, this is what pulls her towards believing that she is her own individual.
Alone, Maxine’s aunt is lost and must give birth. Helpless, she decides to do so in a pigsty. However, as soon as the baby was born her aunt decides to kill the baby and herself. “…how would this tiny child without family find her grave when there would be no marker for her anywhere, neither in the earth nor the family hall? No one would give her a family hall name.” This clearly shows how Maxine feels about her own family. She writes about her aunt worrying about the new baby and where it would belong. Maxine does not want her family to be so harsh on her aunt. She also refers to women and how they are considered useless to society. This is another example of how Maxine is her own individual, not necessarily defined by her family or their cultural traditions, for she is still in the process of understanding them and their customs.
Maxine is originally Chinese although she feels like she cannot identify who she is based on her family’s traditions and cultural history. She grew up and lived in a Chinese community that followed such traditions, yet she cannot deal with women seen as wives or slaves. It is clear that there are several different viewpoints on Chinese culture, for Maxine, unlike her mother agrees and supports her aunt’s final destiny. Along the story, the narrator attempts to understand the traditional view of women in society. On the other hand, the narrative about Maxine’s aunt helps the reader understand how Maxine’s dissatisfaction towards her family’s traditional view creates little or no empathy for the traditional view of women in Chinese culture.
Furthermore, Maxine starts to wonder whether the story about her no name aunt could be simply a tale her mother decides to invent. This is because one way or the other, Maxine is not allowed to question her mother directly. Maxine reaches the extent in which she begins to question her mother about her tales in relation to her family’s customs and background. For example, unconsciously, Kingston’s mother makes Maxine question her traditions when she says, “Don’t tell anyone you had an aunt.” Undoubtedly, the first thing Maxine does is write a story about her aunt, for her purpose in writing about her is to strengthen her identity as a female Chinese-American.
Kingston also strives to find her own identity, for she goes back to the story of her no name aunt and says that whenever she wants to know something more about what her mother has told her, she cannot ask her mother directly, for her mother has already told Kingston the necessary parts. Kingston’s mother refrains from telling her daughter more about her aunt. Additionally, her refusal makes Maxine search for her own self far from her family’s historical views. Even if her aunt did exist, Maxine does not know enough; therefore, she is ultimately forced to complete her image of her no-name aunt herself. “If I want to learn what clothes my aunt wore, whether flashy or ordinary. I would have to begin, `Remember Father’s drowned-in-the-well sister? ´ I cannot ask that. My mother has told me once and for all the useful parts. She will add nothing unless she feels it is extremely necessary. This shows how Maxine looks for her lost identity yet her mother neglects telling her more about it.
In addition, Maxine also tries to find out what being Chinese really means. She is confused about adapting the stories of past Chinese generations to "solid America." She says that the younger Chinese Americans that she knows hide their real names and struggle with trying to figure out what in them is Chinese and what in them is American. She even points out the fact that her mother, unlike Maxine, has not been able to adapt to the new way of American life. For example, she says, “The immigrants I know have loud voices, unmodulated to American tones even after years away from the village where they called their friendships out across the fields. I have not been able to stop my mother’s screams in public libraries or over telephones.” Maxine also describes her own self as American feminine. “Walking erect (knees straight, toes pointed forward, not pigeon-toed, which is Chinese-feminine) and speaking in an inaudible voice, I have tried to turn myself American-feminine.” This ultimately shows how Maxine has become her own individual.
Moreover, in No Name Woman, Maxine begins to search for her identity as a Chinese American adult. Nevertheless she is conscious of the risks she is taking by claiming her independence from her own Chinese community. In order to understand her relatives, and finally understand herself, Maxine Hong Kingston describes her family’s cultural traditions using tales that point out the differences between her mother’s Chinese culture and her American culture. Kingston wants to understand the culture she is part of and yet one that she has never known.
To conclude, even though Maxine sees herself as her own individual, she remains confused as to some aspects in relation to the identity she tries to uncover. When Maxine’s aunt goes against the standards of acceptable behavior in her community, “the villagers punished her for acting as if she could have a private life, secret and apart from them.” This is when Kingston realizes that she has her own private life, and that no one but Maxine may define who she really is. Finally, Kingston questions her family’s traditional views to find out whether they fit her life principles and her own views as an individual. This serves as an example to prove how Maxine is her own individual, and how her family’s history is nothing near defining her own identity as a person. Maxine has a family and feels like part of it; yet she knows that the standards of being part of her Chinese family are totally different to what she views as her own standards of life, which she has decided to live by.
