Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Woman Warrior

When considering the term 'ghost' as used in Maxine Hong Kinston's The Woman Warrior, it is interesting how encompassing of a definition this single word can possess; including reference to Americans, Chinese, humans and animals, either living or dead. The role that ghost-spirits play throughout the novel vary, whether it's in a talk-story as a cautionary tale or one of bravery and strength.

Brave Orchid has an enlightening conversation about ghosts with some of her roommates saying, "How do we know that ghosts are the continuance of dead people? Couldn't ghosts be an entirely different species of creature? Perhaps human beings just die, and that's the end. I don't think I'd mind that too much. Which would you rather be? A ghost who is constantly wanting to be fed? Or nothing?" (Kingston 66). It's importance became clear when Moon Orchid finally arrives in America, providing an example of complete culture shock and lack of assimilation.  She begins to mentally breakdown and allows her paranoia to take over, claiming Mexican ghosts are out to get her.  Moon Orchid serves to represent the old ways of Chinese culture and the respect shown toward the ghost-spirits.

Brave Orchid herself has many she encounters throughout her life, that later Kingston herself references as the reason to why she cannot move back home with her mother. This tradition is carried over to the Americas, seeing it's citizens also as ghosts.  At first, I thought this made commentary on their view of Americans on a moralistic standard, in regards to our differences in priorities; but I also think it was more simple than that in the sense Kingston is referring to Americans as ghosts, merely to mean outsiders.  A ghost is a spirit that does not belong in one specific attitude. It's stuck between existing with the dead among the living, therefore explaining the openness of the term's usage.

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