Kingston struggles throughout her book to discover and separate the truth from what is just her imagination; however it is within this imagination that another point of view emerges, a shape-shifter that goes through a metamorphosis. Technique in Fiction presents the idea of “Mr. Alpha” who is “omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent” (Macauley, Lanning 142). Obviously Kingston, a human being cannot be this, she is limited to what she knows. However in Kingston’s imagination, her mind and her own fantasies, she embodies some of the traits and qualities of Mr. Alpha. As Mr. Alpha the author is “versatile, flexible, and privileged” and thus has a “variety of tactics.” One of those tactics is that Mr. Alpha “can borrow and use any one of several points of view as it suits his purpose” (Macauley, Lanning 143). In her own world and fantasies Kingston does just this. Since her mother will not tell anymore about the “No Name Warrior” Kingston’s formulates scenarios to suggest how and why her ghost aunt got pregnant. In vivid detail she explains how “When she [her aunt] closed her fingers as if she were making pair of shadow geese bite, the string twisted together catching the little hairs. Then she pulls the thread away from her skin, ripping the hairs out neatly, her eyes watering from the needles of pain” (9). Here her point of view transforms into third-person singular, while it travels to her mother’s village in China to watch how her aunt meticulously threads her eyebrows. In a grander example Kingston takes on the first-person singular point of view of a female avenger, who is from one of her mother’s talk-stories and fabricates a whole life for herself.
Kingston chooses to use multiple viewpoints in which to tell her memoirs relative to the situation and needs at hand. She uses first-person singular to tell about her own experiences; while she reverts to third-person singular in places where first-person singular will give her too many limitations. And finally within the corridors of her own mind she exhibits qualities of “The All-Knowing Mr. Alpha” (Macauley, Lanning 142). Combined all these vantage points are use to effectively deliver her memoirs of a girlhood among ghost.
Abbas Dewji
Mrs. Meahle
AP Literature
8/15/2011
Characterizing of Major Characters in The Woman Warrior
In Kingston’s autobiography, The Woman Warrior, the majority of its characters are female-dominated. Throughout the whole book few males roles are introduced, and those that are mentioned, are briefly characterized if at all. However, Kingston richly characterizes many of the minor and major female roles that are present in her memoirs. The two of the most extensively characterized characters are none other than Brave Orchid, Kingston’s mother, and Kingston herself. Kingston succeeds in unraveling two intricate personalities, which continue to development as the story goes on.
Kingston is the one character the readers watch from a young child to a mature adult, and through Kinston’s writing her personality at different times in her life comes out as well. Technique in Fiction states that the “finest accomplishment” is the “character who is gradually revealed or ‘unrolled’ but who also changes” throughout the novel (Macauley, Lanning 92). Kingston in her autobiography is an embodiment of this accomplishment. When we first come into contact with Kingston she is a shy, voiceless girl who is constantly haunted by her mother’s talk-stories. After hearing a story about a defective infant Kingston “woke at night…[and] sometimes heard an infant’s grunting and weeping coming from the bathroom” (86). However as Kingston begins to talk at the “American school” and tries to fit in as much as possible in the American society, she develops anger and becomes a rebellious teenager (167). There are two scenic episodes in which the reader can see quite clearly how much that voiceless girl has changed. The first of which is when Kingston tortures the “sissy-girl” at her school (175). Alone in a bathroom Kingston squeezed and pinched her cheek, “pulled the hair at her temples, pulled the tear out of her eyes” all in efforts to get her to talk (178). This scene emphasizes and illustrates the anger Kingston was building up inside. This anger led to another, almost climatic scene of Kingston lashing out at her mother. Out of nowhere Kingston’s “throat burst open” screaming “I’m going away. I’m going away anyway. I am Do you hear me?” (201). In both these scenes the “Speech” and Kingston’s “’Behavior Towards Others” are used as “conventional way of characterization” (Macauley, Lanning 93). Lastly, towards the end of the book Kingston shows a mature side of her, one that has found a voice in writing and is able to reflect on her past. Kingston writes “here is a story my mother told me, not when I was young, but recently, when I told her I also am a story-talker. The beginning is hers, the ending, mine.” (206). In this quotation it is evident to the reader that Kingston has changed and is now taking pride in also being story-talker.
It is unusual that an autobiography written by Kingston is so dominated by her mother’s talk-stories and experiences; although this provides us with another complex character that evolves during the course of the book. The readers see Brave Orchid’s personality mostly through the eyes of Kingston. Thus is would make sense that as Kingston’s herself changes, the reader will see Brave Orchid in a new light. Kingston presents her mother as a brave, strong and hard woman, the living example of a woman warrior. However, as shown through Brave Orchid’s attitude, she can be cruel and unaffectionate. Brave Orchid loathes that “during the war…many people gave older girls away for free” and “here I [Brave Orchid] was in the United States paying two hundred dollar for you” (83). However when Kingston is an adult and visits her mother, we are shocked to see a whole different women. Brave Orchid sit by Kingston’s bed and says “how can I bear to have you leave me again?” (100). Kinston observes that her mother’s “varicose veins stood out” on her legs. This new painted picture of Brave Orchids details a weak, vulnerable and lonely woman not seen in the rest of the book. While leaving she calls Kingston “Little Dog” a “name to fool the gods” (109). This shows the love Brave Orchid truly has for her “first daughter” (109).
The reader watches the personalities and characters of Kingston and her mother grow and change, as they are gradually shown to the reader. Kinston truly “produces a many-sided character whom we get to know encounter after encounter” who is emerging, “being changed by the events of life” (Macauley, Lanning 92). These characters are “more than a great technical feat” but also “the center of the art” in a novel” (Macauley, Lanning 92).
Abbas Dewji
Mrs. Meahle
AP Literature
8/15/2011
Kingston’s Beginning in The Woman Warrior
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a common idiom known to anyone acquainted with the English language. This metaphorical phrase can be applied to almost anything, but when picking up a novel, readers generally judge its contents through the first few pages. If the beginning of a book appears dull or irrelevant, more times than not, the reader will not finish the book cover to cover. In order for an author to succeed, he must “hook” their “fishlike readers” right from the outset (Macauley, Lanning 22). However the beginning must also be relevant to the novel itself and not only be there for the sole purpose of capturing the readers’ attention. Kingston is able grasped her reader eyes while still making her beginning meaningful by presenting themes that echo through her memoirs.
Kingston straight out of the outset uses a technique that guarantees her success in grabbing her readers; that technique being “in media res” (Macauley, Lanning 31). This simply means to begin one’s story “in the middle of things” which Kingston does in the telling of the “No Name Warrior” (Macauley, Lanning 31). In the first few pages the reader is presented with a dramatic story shrouded in mystery. In an ironic first sentence to an autobiography Kingston writes “‘You must not tell anyone,’ my mother said,” (3). This adds an element of secrecy to the talk-story Kingston mother’s is relaying. Since Kingston herself is not given all the details surrounding the incident in which her aunt, who has “never been born”, jumps in a well with her child; neither is the reader. This keeping the reader at bay, guessing, jumping to conclusions and anticipating circumstances leading up to the fatality. The atmosphere created by this talk-story leaves the reader griping the book and looking for answers.
Kingston’s dramatic story also is relevant and has significance to the autobiography as a whole. Technique in Fiction warns that a “writer must discriminate wisely between the attention-getting device that soon becomes fairly irrelevant to the story and the beginning that genuinely gathers the reader into the arms of the story” (Macauley, Lanning 22). What makes Kingston’s beginning the latter, is that many themes presented in the talk-story is present and constantly reappearing throughout the autobiography. One theme that is visibly present is the position, role and use of women in a traditional Chinese society. This theme is introduced when Kingston’s non-existent aunt kills herself and her child; Kingston comments that the infant is “probably is girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys (15). This theme is forever looming in Kingston’s life; for example when her mother resents paying for Kingston’s birth, when numerous character calls her and the other Chinese-American girls useless, and when Kingston thinks that her parents are going to marry her off as a solution. Another theme is brought up in the very first sentence, in which Kingston’s mother tells her no to tell anybody about what she is about so say. This theme of secrecy and silence has a deep impact of Kingston’s life. She was often told to “lie to Americans” and to “tell them we have no crimes and no poverty” (185). The silence also affects Kingston at school in which she has to voice to talk. She says “my silence was thickest” and that she “spoke to no one at school” (165). These factors influenced her to the point where she flunked kindergarten and recorded an IQ score of zero.
Kingston is successful in the feat of creating a beginning that is both meaningful and one that will clench the readers’ attention. She uses the age-old and trustworthy technique of “in medias res” that puts the reader in an enticing talk-story, one of many to come. Within the talk-story echoes those themes that glare at readers as they read. One is sure that Kingston’s book of memoirs is always read from cover to cover.
by
boss796 (student)
