Paintings and Nonsensical Stuffs

Here are the themes:

1) The oppression of women ultimately leads to their strength.

AND

2) Simple folk stories and whatnot can have a great impact on modern society.

Here are the explanations:

To depict the Theme #1 I created a portrait of Fu Mu Lan/Kingston. Her back displays without explicit gore, the word “revenge” to merge Kingston’s oppressed livelihood with the fable (to create the impression the Kingston is actually Fu). And her face has dragon scales riddled under her super serious and mildly intimidating expression to radiate the mood that you should not mess with this all-business woman, because she’s been training and is out to cut your racist bosses for calling her derogatory names. The dragon in the story resembles a higher wisdom that Fu has peeked at during her nature survival experiences. This painting relates to the theme in the sense that the dragon scales signify her training with the oldsters and her accomplishments (since during the cutting process she confessed that if not for her days in the mountain, she would not be taking the pain so well).

Theme #2 is portrayed as a cute little black and white illustration humorously portraying Fu smashing racial slurs with a hammer made out of inspiring words. This ties in with the theme in that the narrator compared herself to Fu that they both have haters, but their words will conquer the world. Instead of just sitting by and taking the “cutting,” Kingston has decided to take her experiences and the story of Fu Mu Lan and go out and make it known that she is not a “chink” or whatnot, and gain respect/ win her own war.

Yes

Key Vocabulary

hindrance - stopping

maddeningly - driving to madness

ideograph - symbol

mussed - state of disorder

manes - souls of the dead (Roman Religion)

self-immolation - sacrifice or denial of oneself

quarries - abundant source

strata - layer of tissue

fiefdoms - the estate of a feudal lord

Historical and Cultural Background

In the chapter “White Tigers”, Kingston tells the story of her childhood fantasy Fa Mu Lan, a Chinese legend, from the first person point of view. According to the legend, the female warrior Fa (or Hua) Mu Lan disguised herself as a man to take the place of her father to fight in the army. The traditional story of Mulan was first recorded in a poem titled “The Battle of Mulan” which was written around 500-600 AD before the Tang dynasty. There is no certain evidence to prove Mulan actually existed but her story has been passed down through the centuries to teach obedience, honor, bravery, and modesty. This ancient parable has adapted over the centuries and it has been told in uniquely different ways. The version Kingston tells in “White Tigers” is directly related to the role of women in the 1970’s during which this novel was written. The ancient legend has also inspired the Disney movie “Mulan”. Fa Mu Lan has become an iconic heroine in not only China, but throughout the world today.

Other Books with Similarities

This book, the Woman Warrior, has many connections to other books. Perhaps if one found this book interesting, they would find these other stories interesting, too. A book that has major connections to Woman Warrior is The Joy Luck Club. These books both focus on the Chinese culture and the discriminations toward woman in said culture. Another book that is similar to this book is Life of Pi, however it is not as obvious. Both of the main characters become stranded in an area, for the girl a forest and for Pi a boat, and have to learn survival strategies. Both characters also hallucinate, become very hungry, and have the help of an animal friend. The girl in the forest is saved by a rabbit when it sacrifices itself to her for meat, Pi is saved by the tiger in the boat that leads him to safety. Also, Woman Warrior is similar to Things Fall Apart as both deal with an important aspect of both cultures: Gender. In Woman Warrior it is obvious that women are not seen equally in the fact that Kingston's own family insults her. In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo beats his wife (he has many, also showing little respect for the female sex) and makes many demeaning remarks about the gender, saying they are good-for-nothing. In both stories, women are seen as workers and son bearers. These stories are all very close and certainly have similar qualities.

Note Taker and Moderator Summary

During the discussin last Thursday the group and I went over a couple of questions about the short story "The White Tiger" which reflected to a couple of good answers that I will now state.

Q) In the story Fa goes through China killing and rampaging to overcome her prejudices. How should Kingston go about defeating her present day prejudices?
A) To overcome her modern day stereotypes we decided that she would need to have lots of confidence in everything she does to grow into her self and to have self control to make a fool of her self and to stay strong.

Q) How does the woman warrior in the story compare to the real life narrator?
A) The exciting victory filled life of the woman warrior is nothing compared to the bland unsuccesful life of the narrator. Her parents always yelled at her for being a woman and how grades werent good enough unlike destroying a dynasty was.

Q) Do you believe the narrator would have become the woman warrior she so wanted to be more so in China than in America.
A)No, because the culture in China is way more discriminant towards women than in America and the ability to get something done is more probable in the states. The saying, "better to raise hens then a girl" says it all for this question.

Q) Compare and contrast Kingstons fantasy to her American life.
A) In the book the fantasy was parallel to her real life becasue they both wanted more for themselves. The woman warrior dresses as man and trained to defeat the emperor and get her family back and in the real world the girl got good grades and tried to make her family proud when she could.

The discussion went quite well with our group because everyone brought such good questions that we could all answer with great thoughts. We learned that women are discriminated against in both China and America and one should speak with their words and confidence rather then fight because not all can be trained by magic elders in the mountains. Through strenght one can accomplish all no matter what their sex is. America is a little bit better then China though because we don't have an oppressive government which is why the narrator would be much better off in the states.

Summary of Woman Warrior

In White Tigers, Maxine Hong Kingston grows up hearing about women warriors and grows to adore them, particularly the story of Fa Mu Lan, in which the plot consisted of “the girl who took her father’s place in battle” (Kingston 20). The story then follows the Kingston’s fantasy journey to corner’s of the globe, and then she proceeds to endure intense warfare training. She then gets married and gives birth to a son, but continues to act as a man as she rises to become the leader of the Chinese army of peasants. Even with a baby under her armor, she leads the Chinese to seek revenge on the murderers for their killing of all the sons in her hometown, which results in a victory for the Chinese against a giant. The story closes as the narrator contrasts her disappointing American reality to her fantasy life she created.