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Essay / The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by...
Maxine Hong Kingston, Chinese-American author of her first book The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, opens with the first chapter “ No Name.” Woman,” where she writes about her struggle to distinguish her cultural identity through an impartial analysis of the denied existence of her deceased aunt. Growing up in American culture, Kingston analyzes the possible reasons for her dishonored aunt's dishonorable pregnancy and her village's subsequent raid on her home. Kingston explains how strict Chinese culture fails to be practical in American society. Kingston describes how she rebelliously breaks the cultural taboo of the family by mentioning the exiled aunt and how she defiantly acknowledged the existence of her aunt's life. In doing so, Kingston realized that she had lost the Chinese values imposed by her family, which paralleled those of the capital crime committed by her aunt in her village. Kingston did not write this chapter in reverence for her aunt, but with the intention of providing insight into her understanding of herself as a Chinese-American woman. Today there are many women...