No Name Woman and the Role of Storytelling in the Kingston’s Creation of Self

Throughout her short story entitled “The Woman Warrior”, author Maxine Hong Kingston utilizes storytelling as a form of rebellion, rejecting the cautionary allegory passed quietly through her family about the role and restrictions of womanhood. She instead creates an alternative representation of the story, demonstrating the realistic complexity of being a woman in her Asian-American community.

Firstly, the rebellious nature of Kingston’s piece is central to our understanding of her central purpose. She begins the chapter with her mother’s words: “You must not tell anyone… what I am about to tell you”(Kingston 1). Ironically, Kingston’s entire piece—and its existence—is a rejection of this opening sentence. She details the story her mother told her, about her nameless aunt who became pregnant and was tormented by her community, eventually throwing herself and her unborn child into the well.

In her mother’s traditional tale, the aunt plays the role of a passive caricature who existed, was impregnated, ostracized, and then killed herself. Her role is simply a harsh omen and warning for women in Kingston’s family and community. This is apparent in her mother’s conclusion when she states that “now you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born”(Kingston 9). The Aunt’s name is never spoken again because she represented failure and was erased, only secretly discussed as the omnipresent reminder of the dangers of womanhood.

In contrast, Kingston’s fictitious retelling is created in direct response to her family’s warnings about pregnancy and sex. In Kingston’s imagined story, her aunt is a beautiful and sexually fulfilled woman who—in an act of strength—refuses to reveal the father of her child even as she is tormented and rejected from her community. Kingston recontextualizes her aunt’s actions as loving, challenging the familial taboo that her mother warns her about in secret.

In her conclusion, Kingston’s mother directly correlates the aunt to Kingston if she doesn’t follow a rigid set of familial and traditional rules. Kingston intentionally recreates a story where the aunt has far more choice, freedom, and autonomy, in an attempt to break the traditional story which confined her choice and the choices of Asian-American women in her community. While Kingston’s story is completely fiction, For her, It is a far more accurate representation of the complexity of being herself.