Story-teling Essay, Research Paper

Sophia Chen

Ecomp 100

Essay #5

24 Oct 1996

Story-Telling

Storytelling has helped humankind evolve into a wiser species by allowing those with enough attentiveness and intelligence to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors. The Chinese culture, like many others world wide, base their beliefs largely on stories passed down from generation to generation. Because stories are told and retold, alterations and even new versions appear. Such is the case in ” Fa Mu Lan,” for more than one version is known to exist to this day. Many times the changes in a story are to put its message on a certain level for an individual to understand. If the change is to keep the message updated with society, the version would be a modernized one. These stories affect the stories with a flavor of their own personal character. In The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston utilizes stories told to her by her mother as a device to introduce readers to some aspect of her life. Kingston?s mother pass down to her the wisdom she has acquired from her mistakes throughout her life along with best hopes and wishes.

The Woman Warrior is a story about the life of Maxine Hong Kingston. It is easy to see her identity from those memorable occurrences that she mentions throughout her book, especially the stories her mother told her. The story of “Fa Mu Lan”, for example, teaches women to strive to be the best they can be. It is a story about a woman warrior who takes place of her father in battle and returns in victory as a heroine. It evidently shows that her mother tells this story with her sincerest hopes and passions for her. Her mother wishes her to become more than what it was hope for . Even though woman in old China only grow up to be wives and slaves, she hopes and even dilutions of grandeurs for her daughters thrive in their hearts. Story-telling has been an essential part of their childhood.

Maxine Hong Kingston was told that her aunt who committed adultery and brought shame, bad luck along with destruction to her family. She committed suicide because she could not face their families not tell who the father of the children is. The shame brought about by the incident was too much for her to bare. The story was told to warn the girls from having a child before getting married, as can be arrived at from this statement in The Woman Warrior: ” Whenever she [her mother] had to warn us about life, my mother told stories that ran like this one, a story to grow up on. She tested out strength to establish realities”(Kingston 5) referring to her aunt. Hong did not reveal the father of her daughter, possibly a rape or a forbidden love. From the story, the listener can examine those mistakes make by the earlier generation and avoid possible similar situations.

The Woman Warrior is a book about lives of Chinese American women, their struggles, hardships, hopes and joy. Hong?s story, however focuses on the stories her mother had told her in her youth. Hong tell these stories to shed light on the Chinese culture, mind set, etiquette. This is a book of the

of a woman through the ups and downs of her mothers tales. She provided the reader and opportunity to experience those same stories that affected her so much in her childhood.