When we are analyzing a literature work, the historical background should definitely be considered. Maxine Hong Kingston wrote this book in 1976, memorizing things happened in his childhood, which was about seventy years from now. Thus it is certain that there are something in this book that can not be understood or even considered as ridiculous for people under this era, even for Chinese people.
For “the woman warrior”, one thing that might confuse readers is that how much of the content wrote by Kingston are authentic, and how much of them are made up. Since I did not experience that period of time, I would not know what the situation of Chinese immigrants really was. But I do sympathize with the issue that most Chinese people would be too shy to talk English, especially in front of American people. This problem might happen to any immigrant when he first arrives at a foreign country and has to integrate into the local community. I can only speculate that this issue would be more serious for Chinese immigrants in last century because from what I know, many of them came to America through smuggling business, which means they might lack education, including the English basis. Though times may have changed and this situation might be improved in younger generation but I believe that what Kingston described in the book are based on what she actually experienced.
Many people would criticize that Kingston seems to create the prototype in this book. Before we judge whether Kingston really aimed to create the typical image of Chinese people, it is interesting to analyze what the potential readers of this book. This book was written in 1976, which means it was almost impossible for people in China to read it; furthermore, considering the huge amount of introduction to Chinese culture, I think this book’s target audience was not Chinese immigrants either. As a result, it is safe to say that the potential reader can be the American people who are interested in immigrant culture. Thus what they want to see from this book is the difference between these Chinese immigrants and American people. In my opinion, Kingston knew that her audience wanted to see this kind of cultural conflict and, intentionally or unintentionally, she amplified this conflict. For example, in the plot of her parents dealing with the delivery guy, most readers would see this as a cultural conflict; but to some degree, it can also be considered as a family conflict between the young generation and the old generation. Not only there is a difference between how American people and Chinese people see things, but also there is a huge difference between how children and parents see things. Usually we would call it generation gap, but in Kingston’s description, it turned out to be a entire cultural conflict.
If I were the author I would write more about how these immigrants contacted with the local American people. No matter whether they finally got involved in the local community or not, the process itself is interesting enough.
I think you did a decent job at showing what your opinion on Kingston's work is. There were some grammatical errors and misspelled words throughout which you could have improved on. I also thought you did a good job of showing that you are only speculating and for that you cannot be taken as an expert. Many speculators will claim that they are an authority and I appreciated this take on the subject.
ReplyDeleteI think your paper is really special. You talk about the reader of the story, which I don't think about this question before. I used to think that the reader might be Chinese , since the author is a Chinese immigrant. However, I change my mind, and I think your explanation is really reasonable. People in China in 1970 wouldn't care about the life of immigrants,so the target reader of the book shouldn't be Chinese lived in China. The target readers should be people lived in America--the American people and immigrants in America. I also would write more about immigrants contacted with local American people, because as a reader I'm very curious about the result--if they get involved in this society or not.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I like your idea of the paper.