Breaking The Oppressive Silence:An Analysis Of Kingston’s The Woman Warrior

This thesis is a study on the oppressive silence imposed by sexism and racism,and reveals a way to break through it based on the content of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior(1976).This thesis furthers the former studies from this perspective by presenting the destructive effect of this silence with a more thorough and more detailed analysis of it equally balanced in the spheres of sexism and racism.It therefore shows the exigencies of a breaking through and urges a more conscious effort.This thesis is divided into four parts:Part Ⅰ mainly introduces the silence of Chinese American women by presenting the book’s unusual controversial critical reception which is actually a contest between the dominant group and the ethnic community,men and the feminists,for both the authority and agency of Chinese American women’s articulation.Then it argues that this silence is imposed and therefore oppressive by summarizing and connecting the former studies.Part Ⅱ analyses the oppressive silence of the female characters in the text within the social and historical backgrounds.It is imposed by sexism as well as by racism.The silence that is more imposed by sexism in old China causes No Name Aunt to commit suicide,drives Moon Orchid to insanity,and inflicts Brave Orchid by rendering her a state of ambiguity of mind and a lack of self-identity.The silence that is more imposed by racism has made Chinese American women like Brave Orchid actually inaudible and unable to articulate.Thus being made easy prey of the oppressive silence imposed by both sexism and racism by their gender and ethnic backgrounds,Chinese American girls like the daughter encounter their particular agony and dilemma.Part Ⅲ traces the daughter’s persistent quest for a way to break the oppressive silence throughout the whole book.By drawing lessons from the past struggles of the mothers and recognizing the potential power of her gender and her race from her mother’s talk-stories,the daughter creates a fictional woman warrior image—Fa Mu Lan,who is able to wreak revenge upon all the oppressors.By turning her sufferings into creative imaginative power,and taking the reporting of the crimes of oppression as the way to avenge the wrongs done to her gender and her race,the daughter combines the woman warrior in imagination and the "word woman" in reality into a word warrior identity—and at the same time a silence breaker.Part Ⅳ reaches the conclusion through the above analysis:the oppressive silence is the worst result of the oppression of sexism and racism,it is destructive with its gradual hideous effect on the silenced person;and the way Kingston seeks out to break it proves effective.