Western Exposure: The Anxieties of Translation and Transition

Occasionally interspersed in the narrative of Woman Warrior are parenthetical asides that tell the reader what a particular word would mean in Chinese, such as: “How impolite (“untraditional” in Chinese) her children were” (121). Why would Kingston want to include these asides? They don’t exactly clarify anything, not making the used word any more precise. Instead, it is an exercise in the problems of translation, showing that sometimes a word in English does not necessarily mean the same thing as the word in Chinese. An approximately equivalent sense can be translated into English, but it is rare that the whole meaning—with its system of connotations and contexts—comes through. It is in this sense that Kingston uses translation as a metaphor demonstrating the difficulties of placing anything from one culture into another. In the process of transition, something is always lost and what exists in the foreign culture is nearly always an imperfect approximation.

Extend this metaphor to the characters of Woman Warrior, specifically Brave Orchid and Moon Orchid. Both sisters are, in a sense, translated from Chinese culture into American culture. Brave Orchid seems to have adjusted to her new environment well enough, but as we see when Moon Orchid arrives, Brave Orchid still maintains some cultural ideas that do not fit into her current surroundings. Her scheme to install Moon Orchid back into her husband’s life takes the form of a comical farce because it is so unlike, so foreign to, any ideas of marriage existing in American culture. Brave Orchid says, “The children will go to their true mother—you. That’s the way it is with mothers and children” (125). Her particular phrasing—that’s the way it is--shows that this idea is so deeply ingrained into her culture that it has been carried over and preserved in a way that much of her other “Chineseness” hasn’t. Under the duress of American culture, it seems hard for first generation immigrants like Brave Orchid to completely acclimatize and live free of any cognitive dissonance in between the two cultures—it seems impossible to fit in a way that second and third generations do.

Independence

In Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Kingston frequently brings up the topic of femininity in both Chinese culture as well as Chinese American culture.  Similarly in both cultures women were not granted the freedom and independence that most women have in American culture today.  Chinese American women that were first generations stuck more closely to tradition Chinese social roles compared to those of later generations.  A prime example of that in the novel is the speaker’s mother, Brave Orchid.  Brave Orchid lived the life of a traditional Chinese women even while in America, for the most part.  Where Brave Orchid diverges from the traditional Chinese female life style was when she was granted the opportunity to study medicine for two years while her husband was away in America setting up for the family to immigrate later.  During Brave Orchid’s two years of medical study she was given the unique experience of independence and freedom for the first and only time in her life.  For the first time she was able to follow only her own schedule and when she “shut the door at the end of the workday, [it] does not spill over into the evening” (62).  Brave Orchid got to live out what other Chinese women saw as the “daydream [of] a carefree life” and experienced “what [all women] really wanted: a job and room of their own” (62).  Granted, Brave Orchid actually shared a room with several other women and was studying rather than working, but nonetheless she could follow her own schedule and not worry about the demands of others for the first time.  Brave Orchid received both the gift of education as well as the gift of freedom.  It is curious to note that the only other time in Brave Orchid’s life when she achieves some sort of freedom and independence she rejects it.  In Brave Orchid’s old age her children have grown up and fled the nest leaving her once again in the realm of carefree independence (excluding her husband) yet she seems to be unhappy this time around; “how can I bear to have you leave me again” (100).  The change in Brave Orchid’s views on independence could be considered a product of “empty nesting” syndrome, but regardless it is interesting to note how much her view on freedom varies based on the time in her life.  This Chinese woman used to cherish her time alone, yet with old age she seems to shudder at the thought of it.

As one continues to read the Woman Warrior, the gender inequality in the novel, once merely presented as fact, becomes a deeper issue as the effects of this traditional imbalance begin to manifest through the representation of certain characters and events. The narrator informs readers that her mother, although assuring her she would only become “a wife and a slave,” also teaches her the “song of the warrior woman” (20). The amount of work and responsibility in fulfilling the roles of both a wife and slave seems to be an unrealistic amount to expect a woman to account for. Indeed, the Chinese women in the novel carry a great deal of responsibility, a large part of their burden being the expectation that they will “keep the traditional ways,” while “brothers” and husbands, “now among the barbarians,” were free to “fumble [them] without detection” (8). This double standard regarding the upkeep of Chinese tradition seems inherently unfair. While the men are free to abandon tradition the “heavy, deep-rooted women were to maintain the past against the flood,” “the work of preservation demand[ing]” that they keep the “feelings playing about in one’s guts” from ever being “turned into action” (8). Comparing pictures of her mother and father, her mother in China, her father in America, the narrator recalls how her mother was “not smiling,” that she didn’t have “smiling eyes,” that her “mother’s face will not change anymore, except to age” (58-59). On the other hand, her father’s snapshots (readers are told there are no snapshots of her mother) feature him “smiling and smiling in his many western outfits,” and “always laughing” (59-60). This is while the mother is getting to live the daydream of having privacy and only being responsible for herself for once. “Free from families,” her mother enjoyed a meager “two years without servitude” (62). Despite becoming a successful doctor, having “gone away ordinary and come back miraculous,” Brave Orchid left to America upon the request of her husband, abiding by tradition, she could not know how much she would fall “coming to America” (76). Later on in her life, Brave Orchid expressed her regret to her daughter saying, “In China, I never even had to hang up my own clothes. I shouldn’t have left, but your father couldn’t have supported you without me. I’m the one with the big muscles” (105). Her big muscles have been developed because she has shouldered so much responsibility, the responsibility of maintaining Chinese tradition, and the corresponding hope of return to China have prevented her from making a home in America, viewing everyone else, even her own American-born children, as ghosts, foreign. The work that always needs to be done furthers her responsibilities; raising her eight children she also holds responsibility for the man that dragged her away from success. “In China families married young boys to older girls, who baby sat their husbands their whole lives;” with all of these responsibilities placed upon her by tradition, it is no wonder that not only does Brave Orchid find herself incapable of making a home in America, she also seems disjointed from time, looking at her daughters or sister (and subsequently herself, since looking at Moon Orchid is said to be like looking into a mirror for her) she cannot understand how the amount of time reflected in the changes in these faces could actually have passed. For these reasons, I tie the tale of Fa Mu Lan provided to Brave Orchid, as Fa Mu Lan takes on the responsibility of seemingly everyone in the story, taking her father’s spot as a warrior, birthing her child, maintaining tradition in her obedience to her husband and his family, she fulfills every role asked of her. When confronting the Baron, she accuses him of “taking away her childhood,” which seems reminiscent to me of Brave Orchid’s muddled sense of time. After all, she does tell her daughter she “would still be young if we lived in China” (106). I also find it interesting how personally Brave Orchid takes the ordeal with her sister reconnecting with her husband. The fact that he is a doctor complicates things. What Brave Orchid is truly upset about, I think, is the loss of tradition all around her. She is the only one keeping it going. The family in China has been essentially wiped out, giving them no home to return to in China, her children have no interest in returning to China or being any less Americanized, and the last straw is Moon Orchids’ husband departing from tradition. That he has succeeded as a doctor in America, where she, formerly a successful doctor (in China) has not been able to may make the gender imbalance in her tradition too repugnant to ignore. Success upon reaching the Gold Mountain is only for men, not women. Now, years later, she is merely an elderly woman, without a true home, working in a steamy Laundromat.

The Woman Warrior – Maxine Hong Kingston

After reading this past section of The Woman Warrior I am now even more enthralled by the many intricacies of Chinese culture that Maxine Hong Kingston represents in her novel, particularly the practice of polygamy and the role of the wife as an enforcer of shame for her husband.  With the introduction of Brave Orchid’s sister into the narrative, the complications of having a husband move to the United States and leaving his wife back in China become all the more imperative.  Moon Orchid’s story is a tragic one.  Brave Orchid convinces her sister to confront her husband and his new wife in America, which only breaks her spirit and causes her descent into madness.  I believe that Kingston includes the tale of Moon Orchid in her novel to further complicate the gender roles which arise in Chinese culture and are then challenged when transplanted in the States; she represents polygamy as a form of misogyny, but the trope of the nagging and controlling wife demonstrates that the gender hierarchy is not as clearly defined as an outsider looking in would consider it to be upon first glance.

            One of the most interesting aspects of the chapter “At the Western Palace” is the ideal that Brave Orchid represents a form of femininity which is subversive to the male power structure.  She uses the allegory of the emperor and his four wives to demonstrate how polygamy is often more about one wife asserting dominance over another rather than the husband over his wives.  Of course the eastern wife is meant to depict the first wife (Chinese) and the western wife represents the second wife (American).  This portrayal of the second wife as an intruder is an example of the nature of competition within Chinese femininity that Kingston creates; Brave Orchid tells Moon Orchid that it is her right to usurp and humiliate her husband’s second wife, who has no knowledge of her husband’s first wife and therefore cannot really be held accountable for occupying Moon Orchid’s rightful place.

But the truly compelling aspect of this new Chinese femininity is Kingston’s depiction of the first wife as an enforcer of shame for her husband.  Brave Orchid explains, “You must make it plain to your husband right at the start what you expect of him.  That is what a wife is for – to scold her husband into becoming a good man” (130).  This view of marriage complicates the version of subservient femininity Kingston represents earlier in the novel.  Her beginning chapters represent the female (and the wife) as a slave to their male counterpart, but Brave Orchid asserts her agency over her husband and expects her sister to do the same.  Thus, Brave Orchid becomes a heroine for the women in her family.  The narrator details, “Brave Orchid’s daughters decided fiercely that they would never let men be unfaithful to them” (160).  Kingston chronicles the emergence of a new version of Chinese/American femininity to show that the stereotypical docile Chinese woman is not a true representation.  It is unclear whether it is this new American setting or simply Brave Orchid’s staunch opposition which spurs this development, but either way, the assertion of feminine authority rings true.

The Meaning of Ghosts in The Woman Warrior

In Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior the prevalence of ghosts is apparent, but the meaning behind their recurrence is less clear. The word is used mostly by Chinese to describe Americans negatively but the traditional Chinese rhetoric of ghosts is a positive one. This seeming inconsistency in ideology behind the term is the confusing part.

Anyone who has ever seen Disney’s Mulan recognizes the importance of ghosts in Chinese culture, specifically in reference to ancestors. An individual’s ancestors are to be revered and honored so that their ghosts can influence their decedents’ lives positively. The living leave out food to feed their ancestors’ ghosts and there is even an annual holiday which recognizes the ghosts’ return to the “lower realm” (what Western religion tends to refer to as purgatory, although it is not so negatively regarded in Chinese culture). The Chinese people believe the ancestors they so revere become ghosts when they die.

So why would Kingston have Brave Orchid, her mother who was born and raised in China and still holds its culture close to her heart, refer to Americans as “ghosts”? Her tone is consistently negative when talking to or about any sort of ghost, especially when she is killing the Sitting Ghost. She even goes so far as to say, “there are no such thing as ghosts” (70). And once the move to America is made, the negative tone towards ghosts thickens. The narrator is convinced by Brave Orchid’s rhetoric to be frightened by newsboys, grocers, mailmen, and meter readers simply because Brave Orchid constantly refers to them all as White Ghosts.

The only solution I can come up for this apparent contradiction would be a perceived tainting on Brave Orchid’s part. She obviously does not enjoy living in America – it is not her home and moving here took away her profession and her independence. Her rhetoric on America around her daughter, the narrator, is consistently negative, as if the country ruins everything it touches. Maybe this contamination spreads to her culture and her religion. Maybe America ruins even this for her?

If anyone has any other thoughts as to an explanation for this, I would love to hear it! Because I am certainly confused by it all.

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.  

Why we shouldn’t teach Beloved to stupid high schoolers

As I’ve expressed more than enough times, my reading experience for Beloved was largely influenced by the annotations made by a pre-maturation high school me.  Where some of my marginalia illuminated very vague symbols within the text, I’m not sure how I felt when reading through the intimate scene written between Paul D and Beloved.

One of my favorite symbols within the novel is Paul D’s tin vs. Sethe’s husk vs. Beloved’s red heart. The three descriptions of their hearts (or character) become very telling the nature of how different they are. Paul D’s tobacco tin is rusted shut, while Sethe’s husk is dried. Both suffer from brutal tolls taken on their esteem, incapable of a sincere or satisfied human exchange, and they both fail to meet what is expected of their gender. A rusted tin and a dried husk are likely candidates for the metaphor, but the differentiation is that one is “rusted shut,” as Paul D’s old tin is so weathered and forgotten that it has fossilized, Sethe’s is just dry. Her husk is, after all, opened. It is used. Paul D’s used or not, implies that it can never be used again and suddenly Toni Morrison has made Paul D a complex, rigid character who refutes the emotions that confront him. Sethe is desperate for them, thirsty for her dried leaves. Her husk was stripped off, fine and loose. The nature of having sex with Sethe seemed easier, more nonchalant. He even says that it wasn’t much different from his regular bestiality.

The fact that Beloved is able to open the tin is huge. It only cinches, but the because of Beloved’s red heart, he is able to start opening. Toni Morrison uses the red heart as a symbol of vivacious, bleeding emotion. Beloved, in many ways, is an embodiment of suffering that other characters are unable to convey. But as Paul D is able to be inside a place Sethe never unveiled (she only took off a layers), Beloved’s red heart is releasing small “flakes” of his guarded heart.

And in the margins, 16-year-old Francisco wrote, “Ew. Sex with ghosts.”