Maxine Hong Kingston's Essay 'No Name Woman'

442 Words2 Pages
Maxine Hong Kingston’s essay entitled “No Name Woman” explores the ideas of womanhood, tradition, culture, and identity. Kingston’s mother tells her the story of an aunt of whom Kingston had never heard. When Kingston’s aunt became pregnant out of wedlock, villagers raided the home of her family. Her aunt’s angry family chased her from the home with their scornful cries, and she was forced to give birth in a pigsty. Overwhelmed with pain, fear, and hopelessness, Kingston’s aunt jumped, with daughter in arms, down her family’s drinking-well. Kingston expresses her uncomfortability with her aunt’s suicide as well as her family’s unwillingness to speak of her aunt’s existence. Lacking a complete understanding of her family’s past, Kingston struggles to reconcile her Chinese-roots with her identity as a first generation American.…show more content…
She wrestles with each scenario finding each believable, yet inconclusive. Kingston sees no hope in asking her mother anything further about her aunt. She knows that “[her mother] will add nothing unless powered by Necessity” (309). Kingston’s mother uses stories to “warn [Kingston and her siblings] about life” (309), rather than to explicitly share their Chinese heritage with them. As a result, Kingston questions how she can separate the genuine culture of her ancestors from the embellished representations with which her mother provides
Show More
Related

  • Kingston's Essay 'No Name Woman'

    1782 Words  | 8 Pages

    where perhaps sympathy: the capacity to feel sorry for another’s situation, would be a preferable response. Maxine Hong Kingston, a first generation Chinese-American, reflects on her struggle to empathize, across cultural boundaries, with her aunt, in her essay, “No Name Woman.” The essay opens with a vivid recollection of a memory in which Kingston’s mother tells Kingston about her “no name” aunt. Until that point in her life, Kingston had never heard

    Read More

More about Maxine Hong Kingston's Essay 'No Name Woman'

Open Document