The first chapter of Professor Maxine Hong Kingston novel, No Name Women is a powerful memoir of centered on the author’s own experience growing up as a Chinese-American women in 20th century. Told as a cautionary tale, Kingston’s mother tells her the story of her aunt from China—who is referred to only as ‘No-Name Woman.’ When she was about to give birth to an illegitimate child, the people of the Chinese village ransacked the aunt’s home. Disowned and shamed by her family, Kingston’s aunt left the village and gave birth alone in a pigsty. The next morning, Kingston mother goes to collect water only to find her sister-in-law has committed suicide by throwing herself and her child down into the well.
Confused by the stories lack of details, Kingston rewrites her mother’s original tale, creating the impetus for why No-Name Woman committed adultery. At first she claims that, “Some man had her to lie with him and be his secret evil (Kingston. 386)” Later, Kingston goes on to say her aunt could of, “liked his the question-mark line of a long torso curbing at the shoulder (Kingston. 387)” and thus gave up her honor for lust. In either situation, this use of juxtaposition allows the reader to gain a deeper understand of who the aunt may have been and what Chinese society was like.
In addition, the essay is written in narrative form. It jumps back forth between past and present, fact and fiction, Kingston's life and the village in which her aunt lived. While her aunt lived in a strict, stark household, the author “did frivolous things (Kingston. 385.)” and had a typical American childhood. It allows us gain perspective. We not only learn of the authors struggle between the world of Chinese customs and her new, permissive American environment- but we gain empathy for the nameless relative engulfed in a society focused on survival. All in all, the No Name Women does a successful job at capturing both the attention, as well as the sympathy, from any reader.
Book- Oates, Joyce Carol, and Robert Atwan. The Best American Essays of the Century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Print.
Image- http://kellymaryonette.deviantart.com/art/No-Name-Woman-141688627
| Gone but never forgotten? |
No comments:
Post a Comment