WOMAN WARRIOR Conclusion

One topic that I would like to expand on is the message that Maxine Hong Kingston is trying to convey throughout the book. Woman Warrior is a memoir about Maxine’s life, and throughout her life, she is faced with many obstacles and gets to meet many influential women. Based on the title, the book is about a collection of stories of women who have done something heroic or have gone against the majority. We meet many amazing female figures and are left to decide whether or not they are warriors.
Maxine makes clear the qualities that a woman warrior has. She needs to be brave, like Fa Mulan and the girl in the chapter White Tigers. She needs to be smart, like Brave Orchid and Maxine herself. She also needs to be flexible, a piece of bamboo, like Maxine. Moon Orchid is a woman warrior, but not entirely. It took courage to leave her routine and to come to America and to go and see her husband. She had all the right qualities to be a warrior, but she wasn’t flexible. She couldn’t adapt to her environment. She wasn’t able to accustom herself to the American lifestyle and to the fact that her husband didn’t want her anymore. She went insane. Brave Orchid, in my opinion, is more of a woman warrior than her sister. She was somewhat able to adapt, but still, not entirely. Maxine is the one with the most characteristics that would suit a woman warrior. She is like her family, but with a more American and independent twist.
I think the main message that Maxine is trying to tell us is that it doesn’t matter what your surroundings are, you need to be flexible and adaptable in order to survive. She is a very independent individual, and she went against all of the Chinese teachings, but it got her very far. This book taught me that one shouldn’t be afraid to speak and to show themselves to the world. It is better to make an effort to be noticed than to hide and hope that nobody will ever detect you. This book is also about the transition that one makes throughout his or her life. Maxine changed tremendously throughout the book. At the beginning, she was a very Chinese girl who was afraid of speaking and flunked kindergarten. By the end of the book, she was getting straight A’s and standing up for herself. Where did she get the courage to shout at her mother? This is the transformation that she made. She got fed up with all of the negativity towards her and decided that she needed to figure out what life is like on her own. I think that Maxine Hong Kingston is educating us about the life of a Chinese immigrant’s family and at the same time is giving us some role models and some examples of the women that are warriors to her.