Critical Analysis of No Name Woman
A Critical Analysis of "No Name Woman"Times are different depending on which society one happens to come upon, and no one person has the ability to see everyone's point of view. In Maxine Hong Kingston's short story "No Name Woman", there is the belief that the narrator is faced with pressures from a deeply entwined, scapegoating and contradicting community. In this story while the aunt goes through a major ordeal, the rest of the village takes it personally. The story itself put it so splendidly,"The villagers punished her for acting as if she could have a private life, secret and apart from them." (p. 396)The narrator was told a story from her Chinese culture, of a forgotten aunt whose husband went away to America. During his absence the aunt mysteriously became with child. No one questioned her on how the child was miraculously conceived. Instead they attacked her and her family, showing their shame of the situation they were unwillingly placed in. The Villagers ransacked the family's house and belongings; even her own flesh and blood, her family, later joined the accusations. After she gave birth, the aunt took what little pride she had left, and committed suicide in such a manner, that no matter how they tried to eras
In that action, they spited all the abandonment shown them. Perhaps she had gone against traditions, and made herself up for that man she had fallen in love with. True, she may have committed the appalling act of adultery, shedding her modesty and monogamy for a little pleasure. Maybe it was that perhaps she had been raped, whether from a stranger or the possible hint that it could have been someone in her husband's family. Her husband had been gone for quite some time. The niece suggested that a last resort of respect, even love, towards that man, to shield him, on the consequences of her excommunication and eventual death. The ancestors would themselves give birth, so as to deter the gods from stealing their child's life, hoping the deities would think the baby to be a piglet. Overall outcasts in Chinese culture were just that, they were cut off from all life they knew. Terrified, the group was surrounded by more accusers than outwardly perceived. Why then did the village that shuns the waste of meager poultry, toss aside a life that had been a part of their community? That dismal eve they came, donned in ominous white masks to hide their identities, even though well known to the household that they vandalized.
Common topics in this essay:
Name Woman,
Woman Times,
Hong Kingston's,
husband's family,
name woman,
chinese culture,
hair belonged,
pride left,
life village,
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