The Feminist Narratological Interpretation Of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior

There is no doubt that Maxine Hong Kingston is one of the most famousAsian-American writers currently thriving and all the rage. Her first book The WomanWarrior: Memoirs of A Girlhood among Ghosts is known as a key work in thedevelopment of Chinese American literature and a very outstanding feminism work.Once published in1976, the book got nation-wide popularity among Americanreaders, college students especially, as well as critics and scholars at home andabroad.This thesis tries to interpret Kingston’s The Woman Warrior from the perspectiveof feminist narratology, emphasizing the constructing process of Kingston to establishher female narrative authority, through three narrative modes--personal, authorial andcommunal narrative voice put forward by the precursor of feminist narratology in herwork, which will explain author’s gender appeals.This thesis incorporates five chapters.Chapter One is the introductory part, which briefly introduces author’s lifeexperience, works and literary achievements and the publication story, the argumentsabout its genre and the existent studies of The Woman Warrior. Then bring up thesisstatement: by interpreting Kingston’s The Woman Warrior from the perspective offeminist narratology to explain how Kingston uses female narrative strategies toestablish her female narrative authority.Chapter Two briefly introduces feminist narratology, including the definition,development and existent studies of the theory. This chapter clarifies the significanceand research methods of Fictions of Authority-the representative work of feministnarratology.Chapter Three adopts three narrative modes to interpret The Woman Warrior tohighlight the unique narrative structure of the book, which is embedded in: the book isdivided in five chapters and the first three chapters use personal narrative voice,chapter four authorial narrative voice while chapter five communal narrative voice.Every mode of narrative voice makes author achieve a different kind of narrativeauthority and help author establish her self-identity and female narrative authority as aChinese American female writer. Chapter Four analyzes the narrative strategy frequently used by ChineseAmerican female writer--female narrative to interpret mother’s talk-story, daughter’sretelling and intextuality, to explain how author adopts female narrative to tell femaleexperiences in order to gain strength and to speak up for female.Chapter Five is the conclusion part which focuses on the significance of thefeminist narratological interpretation of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warriorwhich enhances the understanding of Maxine and the book and enriches the practicalstudy of the emerging theory—feminist narratology.