“Woman Warrior” by Maxine Hong Kingston, contains the beliefs of the Chinese culture and how they view the concept of death. Everyone within the Chinese culture is guided by the sense of honor, whether it is upholding the honor your family has fought for, or changing your family honor through you. One of the many instances where Kingston uses ghosts is in the very beginning when Kingston’s mother tells her the story of the “No Name Woman”. The story is based on her aunt’s experience of the village rising against her due to her being pregnant with another man’s baby. Her aunt than has the baby, kills it, and then kills herself. Kingston’s mother uses the spirit of Kingston’s aunt to scare her against having pre-marital sex. Kingston’s mother also explains to Kingston that she is never to talk about her aunt because she is a disgrace to the family, “’You must not tell anyone’, my mother said, ‘We say that your father has all brothers because it is as if she has never been born’” (Kingston). You can see from this statement that the mere act of being with another man, whether be it her choice or by the will of a man, the aunt was stripped of everything, even her name. She remained the "no named woman" and ghost to Kingston's life. Another use of ghosts is seen when
Kingston and her mother, Brave Orchid, move to America. Brave Orchid sees America itself as being death,
therefore seeing Americans themselves as ghosts. Brave Orchid sees
everyone in America as a ghosts, whether it be a garbage man as a “garbage
ghosts”, the American lifestyle, and looks to the “sitting hosts” to protect
her as well as Kingston. For Kingston, this was a hard point of view to follow since the point of view changes from each culture. Even though Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid saw Americans as ghosts, and felt as if they were surrounded by Death and demons, to those who were American, or even Chinese American, the Chinese were the ones that were ghosts. You can see this when Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid confront Moon Orchids husband and demand that he take her back as his wife. He not only wants nothing to do with Moon Orchid, he tells her to never come back because he would be disgraced if people found out he had been married to a Chinese woman before, "You weren't supposed to come here,"..."It's a mistake for you to be here. You can't belong" (Kingston) |  Original Photo taken from Barnes & Nobles  |
