The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingsten

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingsten

Taken up in English 1 class on December 14, 2011

The Woman Warrior is basically about.. well, A Woman Warrior. The short story not only talks about one woman, but can symbolize women as a whole. The story is written in a first person point of view wherein the  author describes her experiences with her family and her country. She talks about two main points: how women are treated so lowly and how women should respond to this lowliness.

The way Maxine wrote the story really caught my eye because as I was reading it, I felt her rage and anger. I felt as if she was talking to me as I read it. Each dialogue was so carefully written to express her feelings on the issue she wanted to address. 

There were two parts of the story that interested me: the part about the couple who sold yams and sticks and the part about being a Chinese in America. The couple who sold yams and sticks was an interesting short anecdote in the story. There was a poor couples who sold yams and sticks to get by for their family. The wife told the husband to shout and advertise their sales in the streets but the husband was shy. In the end, the husband was killed by officers because he was trying to catch birds. On the other hand, the part about being a Chinese in America also interested me because she was part of this whole new world where she could be successful. Since her family treated her badly when she was growing up because she was a woman, she proved herself by being a successful woman in the end. 

Having read this story, I could agree in a way that women are discriminated, but maybe not as much as Maxine's time. A lot of women now are respected, like Oprah and Cory Aquino. Men always think of women as inferior. In the beginning of the story, she wrote about how her family and everybody else seemed to favor the boys over the girls. With that statement, I strongly disagree. I believe that all men and women are equal and are deserving of equal rights. 

This story taught me one thing, the one thing that Maxine was screaming for while she wrote this story - to fight. She was fighting the whole time. As I read the story, I heard her voice fight for what was right. Overall, The Woman Warrior is a great story and should be read by everyone.