Wilmsen 1 Claire Wilmsen In Hye Ha English 286 The Woman Warrior and Haunting Within

As one may presume from the title, The Woman Warrior Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, Maxine Hong Kingstons memoir contains a motif of ghost figures that perform a multitude of functions in the text. The ghosts play a significant role in depicting Kingstons struggle to reconcile the culture of her ancestors while simultaneously trying to find her place in American society. As a highly impressionable youth, Kingston often finds herself feeling confused and frustrated with the ghosts of her mothers talk stories. Throughout the memoir ghosts function as connections to family history, buffers from adapting to life in America, and as sources of power and self-determination. To begin, the first chapter of the memoir, No-Name Woman contains the story of Kingstons aunt as told to her by her mother, Brave Orchid. It is vital to preface this story with the acknowledgement that Kingston often seemed to have difficulty relating to her mother and father. She admits that as a child she enjoyed the luxury of being allowed to go on one carnival ride every year. It was an extravagance that she paid in guilt, our tired father counted his change on the dark walk home (6). This reveals the differing values that Kingston and her parents believed in. As a result of growing up in the United States, Kingston found pleasure in forms of novelty, whereas her parents had not been brought up that way, and therefore noticed only the seemingly senseless waste that such things cost. We later see that Brave Orchid also recognizes this distance between her and her daughter when she calls Kingston a Ho Chi Kuel. This term

Wilmsen 2 roughly translates to good fortune ghost and was a term commonly used by first generation immigrants to describe later generations who had the privilege of being born in the United States (204). Keeping all this in mind, the story of Kingstons aunt becomes very important to understanding the function of ghosts as a connection to family history. Brave Orchid only tells Kingston the basic frame of the story of her aunt. She tells her that the aunt committed adultery, the village, as punishment, raided her home, she became outcaste from society, and she ultimately committed suicide in the town well. The story as told by Brave Orchid failed to provide many details or an explanation of how the aunt got herself into such trouble. This story affected Kingston greatly and she felt haunted by it, but was unable to find any closure because Brave Orchid had not even told her the Aunts name. This predicament turned out to become an unlikely opportunity for Kingston to forge a connection with her ancestral past. The ghost of Kingstons aunt became a connection for her to her family. Since she did not know the details of the aunts life or personality, Kingston was provided with the freedom to make them up for her own purposes. The ghost of her aunt began to take on all of the qualities that Kingston might have wished her mother to possess. The ghost in this portion of the memoir has a self-serving function for Kingston, this is articulated when she states, Unless I see her life branching into mine, she gives me no ancestral help (8). Kingston effectively utilizes the ghost to shape her own role model, and to create the feeling of inclusion in her family that had been lacking for her. Kingston describes the aunt as somewhat of an outsider. She was an eccentric dresser and someone who combed individuality into her bun (9). This quality of superficial vanity takes on a rebellious vibe, as it is not common in the collectivist culture in China. This quality also reinforces the connection Kingston feels towards this aunt. The aunt cared to look

Wilmsen 3 after her appearance even though it was considered abnormal and even wasteful in the same way that Kingston enjoyed occasional luxuries like carnival rides even if her parents did not see the value in them. The figure of the ghost enabled Kingston to feel a connection to her ancestral lineage that was absent with her mother. On the other hand, the ghosts present in Kingstons memoirs also prove to be buffers that prevent her from fitting in and adjusting to life admits American society. Kingston explains that the talk-stories that her mother told were often her way of teaching a particular life lesson, they were stories to grow up on (5). The issue with this is that Kingston was not always sure when to interpret what Brave Orchid told her as a factual story or as a story with an essence of truth within it. Stories like the one about the ghost of Kingstons aunt are left ambiguous. While this allows Kingston to fill in the gaps however she pleases, it also leaves a sense of dissatisfaction. Kingston has grown up in America and because of that she is more inclined to desire to know what is actually true. Without being able to confidently interpret her mothers stories, these ambiguous ghosts stand in the way of Kingston fully understanding herself and her identity as a Chinese-American. Kingston expresses her frustration, Chinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? (6). One method Kingston used to deal with the bizarre stories of her ancestral culture was to push it all into her dreams. Keeping these foreign entities in her dreams and out of reality it was much easier for Kingston to make sense of the world, but also prevented her from understanding herself fully. Kingston is also affected by her mothers conception of ghosts in America. Brave Orchid refers to nearly all American people and customs are ghost people and ghost ways. One example

Wilmsen 4 of this is found in A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe. A drugstore delivery boy accidentally tries to deliver someone elses medication to Kingstons home. Brave Orchid immediately labels him as a delivery ghost. Brave Orchid brands all American people as ghosts like this in order to take away the power they have over her. While they may not be aware of it, Americans have power over Brave Orchid by being beyond her control and understanding. Brave Orchid is living in a country that is foreign to her, so she views the native people as being potentially threatening. Brave Orchid compartmentalizes American things as ghosts just like Kingston does with Chinese things as dreams. When Brave Orchid labels them as ghosts she takes away their authority over her without sacrificing any of her beliefs and justifies her inability to understand them, they are merely ghosts. However, in this situation Brave Orchid decides that the delivery ghost must have been attempting to curse their familys health (169). Brave Orchid orders Kingston to go to the drugstore and demand reparation for this offense. Kingston finds herself amidst the crossfire of two cultures. She knows her mother is telling her to do what she thinks is best and what would be considered common practice in China, but she also knows that it will not be understood in America and fears that people will think she is crazy. It is situations like this that prevented Kingston from fitting in and ultimately pushed her away from accepting the cultural tradition her mother tried to pass along. Finally, the figure of the ghost in Kingstons memoir comes to represent a source of power in her life. Near the end of the memoir Kingston goes off at her mother, she asserts that she is smart and plans on going to college and will not end up like the unfortunate ghosts of the talk-stories. The rant is portrayed to be somewhat childish, resembling a temper tantrum more than a triumphant confrontation. Brave Orchid tells Kingston that she was already aware of all that and, Thats what were supposed to say. Thats what Chinese say. We like to say the

Wilmsen 5 opposite (203). It then becomes painstakingly clear that all along Brave Orchid has only wanted the best for her daughter; it was the cultural differences that created misunderstandings between the two of them. It is not until the conclusion of Kingstons memoir that we witness a reconciliation of the cultural differences. Kingston explains that she had to get away from her home and discover the world on her own in order to move forward. For a period of time Kingston appreciated living in a world that was not ruled by ghosts, cultural tradition, and ambiguity. However, she eventually learns that in ignoring an entire side of her background she was being untrue to herself. From an American point of view one may consider the dismissal of ghosts as being a sign of maturity. The opposite is true for Kingston. It is not so important that she actually believes in ghosts as spirits among the living but rather as symbols of Chinese culture and that through paying tribute to these ghosts, she is paying tribute to her roots. In order to know yourself one first must understand where they came from and it is not possible to deny part of your identity. In learning how to interpret the stories of the ghosts, Kingston is granted authority over them. This is what Brave Orchid had wanted all along. Now that Kingston is finally able to understand these ghosts and her culture more fully she comes to the realization that she can use them to her benefit by becoming a writer. Whereas growing up Kingston tried to get away from her ancestral roots, it is not until she accepts them that she finally finds her place in American society. All in all the treatment and function of ghosts in Maxine Hong Kingstons The Woman Warrior Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts affect Kingstons growth in various ways. The ghosts help her to establish ties to her family history, prevent her from adapting to American society, and ultimately become a source of power for her that determines her future.