The Woman Warrior

Through Maxine Hong Kingston’s novel, “The Woman Warrior” the narrator’s mother, Brave Orchid, seems to be one of the warriors in the novel. That is, fighting against the seemingly normative Chinese traditional feminine that is enslaved to her husband and his family. A warrior in a political sense typically is thought of to be the one asserting power over another country or rising above turmoil in order to overcome an obstacle. Yet, through the warrior or power-like structure of Brave Orchid, Kingston proposes a solution to the traditional subordinate construct of a Chinese woman, as having power and reaching for confidence and strength within ones own dominance as a woman.

In ways most often described through a tell-story, the narrator clearly notes the positioning her mother uses to gain power and dominance through her verbal interactions with others. When fighting with a “ghost” Brave Orchid fights the ghost off by exclaiming, “You have no power over a strong woman” (Kingston 70). By defining herself as a “strong woman” Brave Orchid makes it known that she sees herself as both mentally and physically strong when compared to the feared ghost that haunts the dormitories. She also asserts that the ghost is weaker, calling to mind the gender of the ghost as male and not able to overthrow her, though just a woman and less “strong” in strength. In a similar manner, when Moon Orchid’s flight arrives at the airport, “Brave Orchid pushed to the front of the crowd. She had to be in front” (115). Through this physical action, the mother pushes others aside to assert her dominance and positioning amongst the others waiting to see the travelers get off the plane. It is this literal action that the narrator points out as an example of her mother’s willingness for power and to achieve a metaphorical superiority through her position in line.

Not just asserting her own power, Brave Orchid gives advice to other women. In an instance with Moon Orchid when she goes back to meet her husband after years of separation and new wives: “But you march right in. You push him aside and go in. Then you sit down in the most important chair, and you take off your shoes because you belong” (143). Brave Orchid urges Moon Orchid to sit in the “most important chair,” the chair metaphorically representing that only for a man, who typically represents power over a household. By going one-step further and taking off her shoes, she would be not just crossing power boundaries, but she would be taking off her shoes representing ownership of settling. A settling of making power a permanent fixture in the relationship between Moon Orchid and her husband. Brave Orchid uses these physical assertions of power through claiming oneself and their belongings to represent a newfound confidence for woman and a crossing of boundaries from the traditional way of a passive Chinese woman.