The woman warrior - Essay Example

The Woman Warrior: The White Tigers Introduction The inscription of The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Girls is a fictional collection of tales told by Maxine Hong Kingston in which Chinese and American cultural displacements and societal aspects are blended into the postmodern context. She tries to incorporate the anthropology of the “White Tigers” a chapter among the five represented in the book. It depicts the realms of a warrior who fights in two contrasting environments in order to save her people from the wrath of communists and societal stigmatization.

The tales of the chapter are well characterized by the persona, Fa Mu Lan. However, the actualization of her tales represents Maxine living the life of the persona. She uses her position as a warrior to interject her personal and familial experiences to the discriminations of the communist rule in China. In the second section of the chapter, she uses her position to lift the cultural gap portrayed by Chinese emigrants in America under the realm of Chinese Revolution. The significance of the changing roles of women in White Tigers as depicted by Fa Mu Lan represents the conventionalism and flexibility for women to pursue a man’s life.

Whatever a man can do, a woman can do, is the typical representation of the diversity of female roles in the story. She manages to maintain her family (her husband and child) and simultaneously takes on her community against authoritarianism. The role of Fa Mu Lan in the context differs with the real actualization and impersonation of her as a man warrior. She wears the traditional male armor, and having an entire battalion of traditional warriors to lead the fight against communists. She undergoes intense training in a secluded place and starves herself to attain warrior-like aspects need to sustain her role to protect her community, strategies that a typical woman cannot withhold.

According to Kingston, Fa Mu Lan, having an honorable death due to social status does not determine the ideology of death. Barons and the communists’ status quo in the traditional Chinese community represented dictatorial leadership and demand honorary respect from the subjects. However, Fa refutes this stereotype by defeating the communists’ and beheading the lead baron. With her sword, she slashes the head off and leaves the baron to die. Her sword represents the continuation of the fight against societal alienation from changes in revolution (Helena 23).

The use of the forest as a spatial convenience of warrior training is used as a traditional setting that induces hardships, which is the first test to determine the status of a warrior. It emphasis the character engagement to life battles as it provides an environment with inhospitable life circumstances. These are represented to their extreme due to the transformation of a woman to fit into man stature that can resist war. Negotiation of honor and power form the chapter does not compromise gender nor does the position one hold in the society.

This is shown by the support of the characters in the Chinese setting when Fa tries to converge an army from her village to overcome the tribulations caused by the baron and his army. In addition, she is received with awe after her act of beheading the baron after the war. The community in which Kingston shows their recognition of societal honor that respects the sociality, gender and responsibility. The depiction of the red color on the bird that Fa Mu Lan follows away from her home represents the Chinese implication of meaning multiplication.

It was associated with happiness, good luck and role of womanhood in the family. Fa followed the bird into the dark forest, only for luck to come her way and be hosted by an old couple that host and enables her to achieve her role. Despite the role of family and feminism being regarded as ambiguous, White Tigers provides the role of family in maintaining the societal status of feminism. Fa leaves sacrifices herself during her girlhood and becomes an outcast to her own society. However, her return to the old couple from the forest allows her to view her future family on a guard.

She feels that she needs to return home and protect them, as much as fulfill her woman role in the family. At the same time, the responsibility of being a woman in the story is witnessed when Fa’s husband leave the battleground to protect their child. The departure of the husband triggers elemental emotions concerning the aim of enhancing female responsibilities in the family (Helena 127). In comparison to the texts of Antigone, Fa Mu Land and her counterpart Antigone are represented as characters who take in manly responsibilities.

While Fa transforms herself, Antigone is depicted as a girl with boyish aspects from her physique. They are both presented as heroes in their societies, as Antigone deals with the political, moral and spiritual trappings to protect the plight of children in the Greek society. Work CitedHelena Grace. Maxine Hong Kingston. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006.