Harmony and Balance between the Orient and the Occident in the Woman Warrior

Abstract

Maxine Hong Kingston is one of the most famous female Chinese American writers in 20th century. Her famous novel The Woman Warrior confirmed her status in American literature. The novel describes the heroine’s life as a Chinese American and depicts the psychological course and conflict when confronting the pressure from both gender and culture. This book indicates Kingston’s pursuit of the harmony and balance in a variety of aspects. This paper mainly focuses on the harmony and balance between East and West. The first part deals with the theme of mother and daughter’s relation, in which the mother represents the traditional Chinese culture while the daughter struggles among the conflicts of eastern and western culture. Secondly, the novel conveys the ethnic women’s appeal by talking about the texts of the novel. The author also reveals the Chinese Americans’ pursuit of self-identity. Kingston was writing with an intense aspiration of speaking for the Chinese. The third part is the theme of silence and articulation in which Kingston tries to reconstruct their identity by breaking up the silence and articulating their appeal. Kingston also put forward a dream of globalization and unity in her novel.