60 pages • 2 hours read
Maxine Hong KingstonThe Woman Warrior
Maxine Hong KingstonNonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1976A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Quiz
Reading Check, Multiple Choice & Short Answer Quizzes
Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.
Parts 1-3
“No Name Woman,” “White Tigers,” and “Shaman”
Reading Check
1. What is the name of Kingston’s aunt who drowns in the well?
2. Why did the villagers attack the family home?
3. Why did Kingston think her aunt’s harassment by the mob was unfair?
4. What reasons does Kingston imagine for her aunt’s pregnancy?
5. What reason does Kingston offer to explain why her aunt might have stayed silent on the identity of the father of the child?
6. Why does Kingston speculate that the aunt’s child was a girl?
7. Why does Kingston call her aunt’s death a “spite suicide”?
8. Who is the woman warrior in the talk-stories and songs Kingston’s mother tells?
9. Who is the woman in Kingston’s own talk-story?
10. Name three challenges or skills Kingston’s woman warrior had to master in her time on the mountain.
11. How does Kingston’s woman warrior check on her family while she is in training?
12. What animal sacrifices itself in the fire on the woman warrior’s journey through the wilderness?
13. What does the woman warrior’s family write on her back?
14. What is Maxine’s mother’s name?
15. What does Kingston’s mother study in school?
16. Aside from healing others, at what else does Kingston’s mother prove to be particularly good in her youth?
17. What, according to Kingston’s mother, is an uncanny way to vanquish a ghost?
18. According to Kingston’s mother, what sat in the mysterious jar on a shelf in the family home?
19. What occupation did Kingston’s mother have in America?
Multiple Choice
1. What is the significance of Kingston’s beginning the memoir by telling a family secret?
A) Telling the family secrets are the only way for her to make sense of them.
B) Kingston wants to spite her mother.
C) By defying her mother’s instructions, Kingston breaks a culture of silence and finds her voice.
D) Kingston shows herself to be an unreliable narrator by starting with a lie.
2. Why does Kingston say her aunt haunts her?
A) Her aunt became an untended ghost who has found her and makes her life miserable.
B) Kingston sees her aunt in every family picture but can’t say anything about her.
C) The aunt’s ghost is more symbolic than real; details regarding her suicide elicit Kingston’s need to write about it.
D) both B and C
3. Which best describes the tension Kingston feels between her reality and the imagined life of the woman warrior?
A) It is a paradox: Kingston’s mother fills her head with stories of powerful Chinese women, but she’s expected to act powerless in order to uphold tradition.
B) It is hyperbole: The woman warrior’s story, like all talk-stories, is an exaggerated version of real life.
C) It is an authorial intrusion (or breaking the fourth wall): Kingston has stepped out of her role as memoirist to tell a tangential story about woman warriors.
D) It is a conflict: Kingston is fighting everybody in real life; why not in a talk-story too?
4. Which of the following is the most likely significance of the dragon in “White Tigers”?
A) It is literal. The dragon is a real dragon that comes alive to help the woman warrior complete her quest.
B) It is spirit-vision. The dragon takes the form of the people who were a part of the mountain all along.
C) It is a metaphor. The dragon is a symbol of life itself: The whole idea is unknowable, and there are dark parts and well-lit parts.
D) It is Kingston’s imagination. She says that a tiger isn’t big enough to make sense.
5. How is Kingston’s talk-story in “White Tiger” like her mother’s bedtime talk-stories?
A) It has many chapters or parts, so it could be told over many nights.
B) It mixes life lessons with mysticism and mythology.
C) Telling it helps Kingston to develop a sense of self-esteem and acknowledge her personal power.
D) all of the above
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What is the significance of Kingston telling and re-imagining her aunt’s story in “No Name Woman”?
2. How does Kingston make sense of the sexual and cultural politics surrounding her aunt’s death?
3. What is the difference between the woman warrior talk-stories and the ones Maxine’s mother tells as a warning?
4. How does the image of the woman warrior contrast with the cultural expectations Kingston’s mother holds about femininity?
5. What are some elements of the talk-story?
6. Characterize Brave Orchid in her youth.
Parts 4-5
“At the Western Palace” and “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”
Reading Check
1. What is Kingston’s aunt’s name (her mother’s sister)?
2. What kinds of gifts does Kingston’s aunt bring to the family?
3. How do the children respond to their aunt’s intrusive questions?
4. What mission do the two sisters undertake after the aunt’s arrival?
5. What reason does the Americanized husband give for not sending for his wife?
6. What is the aunt’s fate after being jilted by her husband?
7. Why does Kingston’s mother cut her frenum?
8. What does Kingston do to her childhood art?
9. Does Kingston ever get the silent young schoolgirl to speak? Explain.
10. What finally provokes Kingston to break her silence with her family?
11. What did Ts’ai Yen become after the so-called barbarians ransomed her back to Chinese society?
Multiple Choice
1. Why does Kingston include Moon Orchid’s ordeal with her husband in the memoir?
A. Kingston’s troubles with her mother began with Moon Orchid’s arrival. They fought over how Brave Orchid pushed her sister to the brink.
B. Moon Orchid’s irresponsible husband echoes the men who went across the ocean and didn’t have to be accountable to Chinese customs the way the women who stayed did.
C. Moon Orchid may have gone insane because she stayed silent. Writing about it allows Kingston to explore silence as one of the themes in her memoir.
D. both B and C
2. In “At the Western Palace,” what is the effect on the memoir when Kingston takes on the voice and perspective of her mother?
A. Kingston gets to explore her mother’s perspective safely.
B. Through Kingston’s imagination of Brave Orchid, readers get more details on how Kingston felt about her mother and how she thought her mother felt about her.
C. By imagining her mother’s voice, Kingston breaks another code of silence in Chinese culture.
D. Structurally, Kingston’s changing voices disrupts the narrative, making it harder for outsiders to read and understand.
3. Which type of irony is it when Kingston’s mom cuts her frenum, but Kingston has trouble speaking?
A. situational irony
B. dramatic irony
C. verbal irony
D. none of the above
4. How does Kingston present silence and madness as cause and effect?
A. Kingston shares stories of women whose silence may have contributed to their madness (Moon Orchid and Pee-A-Nah).
B. Kingston uses explicit detail to describe her fear of being the only sane one in a family of mad people.
C. Kingston’s ghosts symbolize silence and stories untold. This motif allows her to return to her thoughts on silence repeatedly.
D. Kingston loses her mind when she begins to talk; she decides silence is the only way to stay sane.
5. What is the significance of Kingston’s outburst toward her mother at the dinner table?
A. Kingston’s outburst solidifies the rift between her mother’s family and her.
B. Kingston’s outburst breaks her away from Chinese culture but learning to use her voice through writing also brought her back.
C. Kingston’s outburst tears her away from Chinese culture and thrusts her firmly into American culture, never to return.
D. all of the above
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How is Moon Orchid’s story like the Hero’s Journey?
2. What is the significance of Kingston and her siblings deciding to pursue mathematics and science in college?
3. Why did Kingston close the memoir with the story of Ts’ai Yen?
4. What aspects of Kingston’s narrative structure are outside of western, linear storytelling?
Quizzes – Answer Key
Parts 1-3: “No Name Woman,” “White Tigers,” and “Shaman”
Reading Check
1. She doesn’t have a name. (“No Name Woman”)
2. The aunt was pregnant out of wedlock. The pregnancy was a disruption to the community’s order and an affront to the cultural vows of marriage. (“No Name Woman”)
3. The men, who lived an ocean away, were not able to be held accountable to the same standard of marital fidelity. At the same time, the village was small enough and society close-knit enough that the man who impregnated her was likely among the villagers who trashed the family’s home. (“No Name Woman”)
4. She imagines her aunt was raped. Then, she imagines she willingly had an affair, fell in love, and had a tryst. To do this, the aunt might have combed her hair, which, if done at the wrong time, brought bad luck upon her and the village. (“No Name Woman”)
5. Kingston speculates the aunt did not want to disgrace the man’s family and reputation. (“No Name Woman”)
6. At this time, boys were more prized than girls. If the aunt had given birth to a boy, she might have been able to defend herself against so much torture and pain. (“No Name Woman”)
7. Her aunt jumped in the well, which would make her a water ghost. In Chinese mythology, water ghosts are difficult, especially those that haunt wells. Her actions also disrupted the water supply. (“No Name Woman”)
8. Fa Mu Lan (“White Tigers”)
9. an imagined version of Maxine Hong Kingston (“White Tigers”)
10. Possible answers include these ideas: how to be still, bodily control, run with deer, jump 20 feet high without a running start, survival in the wilderness, shoot arrows with great accuracy, make her mind large enough to glimpse the universe, make a sword appear out of thin air and control it with her mind, become a vegetarian. (“White Tigers”)
11. She looks into a water gourd her male teacher carries. (“White Tigers”)
12. a rabbit (“White Tigers”)
13. revenge, oaths, and names (“White Tigers”)
14. Brave Orchid (“Shaman”)
15. medicine; midwifery (“Shaman”)
16. vanquishing ghosts (“Shaman”)
17. eat them or not eat them on fasting days (“Shaman”)
18. a bear claw (“Shaman”)
19. She ran a laundry service. (“Shaman”)
Multiple Choice
1. C (“No Name Woman”)
2. C (“No Name Woman”)
3. A (“White Tigers”)
4. C (“White Tigers”)
5. D (“White Tigers”)
Short-Answer Response
1. In some ways, she’s feeding the ghost and feeding a lost member of her family lineage. Not allowing her to be forgotten restores the family lineage. It also shows that many of Kingston’s frustrations are rooted in anti-feminist sentiments maintained by her culture. (“No Name Woman”)
2. She sees it as an example of the silence that leads to madness in some members of society. She also sees it as an example of cultural double standards regarding who upholds the culture, and who can get away with disgrace. (“No Name Woman”)
3. The woman warrior stories are meant to inspire pride and self-esteem. The warning stories are meant to teach, but they instill fear and confusion instead. (“White Tigers”)
4. The woman warrior is brave, highly-trained, and a fierce fighter. Cultural expectations don’t hold her back--but she does have to disguise herself to break a lot of them. Kingston’s mother expects her to uphold tradition, not break them. (“White Tigers”)
5. Talk-story is part reality, part mythology, part truth, part memory. (“No Name Woman,” “White Tigers”)
6. Brave Orchid was bold, dynamic, brave, clever, and a shrewd businesswoman. (“Shaman”)
Parts 4-5: “At the Western Palace” and “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”
Reading Check
1. Moon Orchid (“At the Western Palace”)
2. impractical ones such as paper dolls, jade bracelets, frilly shoes, silk, and fancy dresses (“At the Western Palace”)
3. They become irritated and try to hide from her. (“At the Western Palace”)
4. Brave Orchid convinces her sister to confront her estranged husband and his second family. (“At the Western Palace”)
5. He says he forgot about her and the people he left behind. The longer he stayed in America, the less real they became to him. (“At the Western Palace”)
6. Moon Orchid is driven to madness; she has to be institutionalized at a mental health facility and dies there. (“At the Western Palace”)
7. Her mother cuts her frenum so she can talk fluently. (“A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”)
8. She colors all over it, usually black, like a stage curtain. (“A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”)
9. She does not; she cries instead. (“A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”)
10. She fears they are trying to marry her off to a boy with an intellectual disability. (“A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”)
11. a famous Chinese poet (“A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”)
Multiple Choice
1. C (“At the Western Palace,” “No Name Woman,” “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”)
2. B (“At the Western Palace”)
3. A (“A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”)
Short-Answer Response
1. It begins with a woman leaving home, the only home she’s ever known. She tries to study American ways by working at the laundry and studying the children’s behavior. She’s given a quest: to confront her estranged husband. The quest requires her to overcome her old self, her old training to be silent—but she can’t do it. When she descends into madness, she becomes the hero dying in order to be reborn. In the mental health ward, she finds peace, love, and care. Her fate is bittersweet, as some journeys are. (“At the Western Palace”)
2. The children find it difficult to separate what is real from what is not real in their Chinese culture and household. By choosing studies that focus on reality and provable answers, they hope to become less Chinese and more American. They also hope to find and keep a firmer grasp on reality and avoid slipping into madness. (“At the Western Palace”)
3. It is a metaphor. Ts’ai Yen’s kidnapping forces her to become a woman warrior. She lived and trained in a foreign place and raised a family there, just like Kingston lived and grew up in a place that didn’t feel like home. In the end, her anger and frustration became a beautiful song, in the same way that Kingston funneled her feelings into a powerful memoir. “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”)
4. Kingston uses talk-stories to discuss talk-stories, but she also uses them as a literary device to tell her own story (“Shaman” and “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe”). Additionally, she also writes in the imagined voice of her mother, which is a form of historical fiction (“Shaman”). The stories in the memoir jump back and forth in time and back and forth between myth and reality (“White Tigers,” “Shaman,” “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe.”)
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