A Brief Summary Of Maxine Kingston's The Woman Warrior
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In the year 1975, Maxine Kingston published her autobiography “The Woman Warrior” that drew a lot of criticism and reactions from all corners of the world. The Woman Warrior describes the experiences of a Chinese-American girl child that experiences difficulties while growing up in California. Kingston published her memoir at a time when multiculturalism and feminism were coming to the fore. Despite not being written as a political tract, The Woman Warrior amicably spoke to both causes.
The Woman Warrior got a warm reception from the mainstream media but was not received well by a huge portion of the Chinese American community. The first controversy with the memoir is the category under which it was published. Despite the book being labeled Fiction/Literature on its back cover, opposite proclamations of it being a non-fiction is seen on the front cover. Jeffery Chan accuses Kingston for distributing an obvious fiction for fact. According to Frank Chin, the Woman Warrior did not give a fair reflection of Asian-American experience.…show more content… This decision was made by her publisher who needed to decide the category for The Woman Warrior. Her publisher suggested to her that non-fiction would be more marketable and even Kingston only agreed to the idea when she was told that even poetry is categorized as non-fiction. Despite there being some elements of fictionalization in the memoir, it is clear that these exaggerations serve the purpose of creating an accurate depiction of Kingston’s feelings, thoughts and experiences as a Chinese-American child. Despite the numerous elements of fictionalization, Kingston’s work remains an autobiography at the core. She uses elements of fiction as a mere device to accurately portray her personality. This unusual yet unique strategy combines well to create a perfect balance between her childhood struggles and her coming of