An experiment this week: Feel free to post anything with regard to The Woman Warrior and/or the supplementary readings that seems interesting or important to you, regardless of subject, length, etc. Posting is optional this week, but if you post, do so early enough that others can have the chance to read it before class on the 7th.
The theme about speaking versus being silent is very present in this last chapter. It seems that the roots of silence come from the culture’s position in America. She is told to be quite about her life and lie to Americans; “Lie to Americans. Tell them you were born during the San Francisco earthquake. Tell them your birth certificate and your parents were burned up in the fire. Don’t report crimes and no poverty. Give a new name every time you get arrested; the ghosts wont recognize you” (184). The secrecy goes even further than just lying as we can see with the girl who will not talk even when Kingston forces her to. Kingston’s inability to express herself and to talk to her mother come from this secrecy as well. Her mother slices her frenum and this represents what her mother has done ultimately with her way of raising her. “ Maybe because I was the one with the tongue cut loose I had grown inside me a list of over two hundred things that I had to tell my mother so that she would know the true things about me and to stop the pain in my throat” (197). The loose tongue comes to represent the way her mother has cut her speaking and expressing abilities with her ghosts and unspeakable subjects.
Much though I understand why the chapter "Shaman" wasn't assigned, it's nonetheless unfortunate--it may not strictly pertain to ethnicity, but I strongly suggest that you take fifteen minutes and read it if you get the chance. It actually seems a better representation of Kingston's "method" or general style than the other chapter's we've read, in that it speaks to her relationship with her mother in both pragmatic and highly imaginative, fanciful (I don't use those words derisively here) ways. It's very groovy. Go forth and check it out.
[This is Carter, by the by. I'm technologically inadequate.]
I was also struck by this idea of silence especially the contrast between behavior at the chinese school and in American School. How they were quiet in American school and loud and bossy in chinese school... The difference btwn chinese and american feminine..I was amazed by sanity and insanity being measured by talking and not talking, However, what struck me the most was the whispering and the secrets which also go along with the silence. One particular line that struck me was" there were secrets never to be said of the ghosets, immigration secrets whose telling could get us sent back to China.(183). Every outsider was regarded as a ghost-ghost pharmicists and mailmain but even people in the inner circle were ghosts too. Then, as if to refer back to the difference between insanity and sanity her mother says " I cant stand this whispering... Madness. I don't feel like hearing your craziness.(200). I was beginning to feel a little insane myself reading this book with the causual mention of horrors and all the "talking-stories" that must be lies. The father called his own children Maggots! The child almost beat the other child senseless over not talking! Why did she hate her so much? Did she remind her of herself?
Something else that struck me was the concept of silence being described as a Chinese trait when Kingston herself describes Chinese as being loud. Her mother talks about ghosts (Americans in this case) as being “noisy and full of air” and then Kingston talks about the Chinese as “talking at once, big arm gestures, spit flying,” extremely loud (184 and 171). Chinese people see Americans as being loud but they recognize their loudness; “My father asks, why is it I can hear Chinese from blocks away?” (171). The concept of secrecy and silence against the concept of loudness is interesting because even though they are two different things, they have an ironic connection. For Kingston Americans are the quite ones. She wants to become American-feminine, which makes her a type of ghost herself: “We American-Chinese girls had to whisper to make ourselves American-feminine;” ”we had been born among ghosts, were taught by ghosts, and were ourselves ghost-like” (172 and 183). Kingston seems to want to let go of everything that reminds her of the silence and thus reveals the secrecy among Chinese in her book. She is curing the pain in her throat like she wanted to do by talking to her mother before.
What is Kingston's view of women? What is her mom's view?What is her father's view?
Kingston presents the silence as having something to do with being a Chinese girl. Is she pretending to be nuts so she wont be married off? DOes she even want to go to college or does she just want to oppose traditions? SHe justifies it on page 205 when she says " I know now they don't sell girls or kill each other for no reason
Isn't her mother the one telling her to talk properly and clean herself up so she can be married off? I was a little taken aback by the statement "I was a doctor, I went to medical school. I don't see why you have to be a mathematician" (202) She's a doctor! Then why is she potrayed as settling for her daughters being typists and just being married off. Why on earth would you cut your daughters tongue?
As for the male view, Her father repeats the words of Confuscious and says " a husband may kill a wife who disobeys him" and Kingston also says that COnfusious was a rational man. (193). Another scene was that of the old man when he called them all Maggots at every meal because they have not given him grandsons (191).
I want to second Carter's comments on the interest of "Shaman." I was trying to keep the reading load manageable for everybody, while still having time to look at some secondary sources on The Woman Warrior, but it really is worth your while to take a look at it. This is where you get the mother's back story.
sjf291 wrote:
I was a little taken aback by the statement "I was a doctor, I went to medical school. I don't see why you have to be a mathematician" (202) She's a doctor! Then why is she potrayed as settling for her daughters being typists and just being married off. Why on earth would you cut your daughters tongue?
The mother, Brave Orchid, went to medical school in China while her husband was in America. As a doctor, she has very high status in the community, owns a slave (!), etc. In America, she works in a laundry. It's totally opposite to the picture we normally have of people coming to America for a better life. Not to say that reading this section will resolve everything that seems contradictory about Brave Orchid, who like Walt Whitman contains multitudes.
It's also worth while to read the fourth section, "At the Western Palace," especially if you go ahead with "Shaman," although I have to confess that this is my least favorite chapter. One comment Kingston has made is that the book is actually quite funny, that her brothers and sisters "got" it but so many readers don't; this section, she says, is organized as if it were an episode of I Love Lucy.
Hi all--I found an article in a collection of essays, this one by Edward Said and titled "My Thesis." It is, effectively, just that--about two pages explaining in general terms the thesis from "Orientalism." My suspicion is that it can be found on JStor or through the databases we learned about at Bobst. If not, I'll try and get photocopies and bring it in next Monday; in the meanwhile, though, give it a try, it only takes about five minutes to read.
Hi all--I found an article in a collection of essays, this one by Edward Said and titled "My Thesis." It is, effectively, just that--about two pages explaining in general terms the thesis from "Orientalism." My suspicion is that it can be found on JStor or through the databases we learned about at Bobst. If not, I'll try and get photocopies and bring it in next Monday; in the meanwhile, though, give it a try, it only takes about five minutes to read.
Carter -- can you tell us the name of the essay collection? It may be easier to find that way. (Just searching for Edward Said will turn up loads of hits to sift through.) Also, if you don't want to bring photocopies, I've just learned how to use the department copier to turn documents into pdf files, so if you bring just one, I can scan it and e-mail it to the class.
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