Woman Warrior Conflicts

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In The Woman Warrior, a family of Chinese immigrants struggles to fit into the American society because of their cultural beliefs. Throughout the novel, the readers realize that the Kingston family has very different views than the Americans that they live upon in California. Their differences develop some conflicts internally and externally. Within this book, the audience learns that In a Chinese culture, women are considered to be inferior to men, there is a fear of communicating, and daughters were not wanted as much as sons which all cause conflicts. Here in America, men and women are fairly equal. In Chinese culture, women are not nearly as superior as men and that is demonstrated throughout the book. For example, Maxine, the narrator,…show more content…
This was because girls couldn’t carry on family names like the boys could. To make this point, Maxine says, “It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys” (15). When she says this, she is speaking of her aunt who drowned herself and her child. She is stating that if the baby had been a boy, maybe she would have only killed herself, but she killed her baby as well because she knew that nobody would care to help raise a baby girl. This was an internal conflict for her aunt because she had to make a tough decision of killing herself and her own child. Another thing that relates to this, is when Maxine says, “On Saturday Mornings my great-uncle, the ex-river pirate, did the shopping. ‘Get your coats, whoever’s coming .’ ‘I’m coming. I’m coming. Wait for me.’ When he hears girls’ voices, he turned on us and roared, ‘No girls!’” (47). This goes to show that men didn’t want to take the little girls out because it was almost a disgrace to even have girls in the family. This created an internal conflict for Chinese girls because they would always question why they were not good enough which lowered their self esteem. This is different from American culture because here, there is nothing wrong with having a
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