Written by the Body: Evolutions of Embodiment in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

Abstract

AbstractWhile much has been written on embodiment and autobiographical narrative strategies in Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior (1975), little critical attention has been given to these aspects in her latest foray into poetry, I Love a Broad Margin to My Life (2011). The materiality of bodies in her characters No Name Woman and Fa Mu Lan are altered across the two works in ways that reflect and engender a change in cultural necessities for peace. The female avenger's body evolves from a weapon that addresses wrongs through violence to the embodiment of Kingston's striving for a happy ending, on the page and also in reality, thus implicating her work with war veterans. No Name Woman's suicide changes from an embodiment of vengeful female subjectivity that is concomitant with biological destiny to an occasion of communal reconciliation. In tandem, Kingston's reappropriation of her portrayal of the swordswoman Fa Mu Lan in The Woman Warrior shows a progression from a soldier's aggressive filiality to patriarchal norms to a woman's act of self-violence that addresses the reality of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) prevalent among war veterans. If life writing, as narrative psychologist Jerome Bruner argues, is capable of constituting identity and shaping future reality, Kingston's work of intersubjective remembering and community building through autobiographical narratives that constantly position the body at the intersection of public and personal identities has positive implications for her peace project.