In the second chapter, White Tigers, Kingston relates herself to Fau Mu Lan. She believes she is this great female warrior taking revenge on everyone. At the age of seven she wonders around and comes across an old couple and they ask her to stay for fifteen years of training to become a great warrior, and she does. She learns the dragon, she traines on the mountain of the white tigers and fended for herself, etc. Kingston lerned that her brother, and husband were drafted into war and she wanted to defend them. She returns home and learns of her faher going to battle. Se has decided to take his place and her parents tattoo her back "we are going to carve revenge on your back...we'll write out oaths and names. wherever you will go, whatever happens to you, people will know our sacrifice...she meant that evenif I got killed, people could use my dead body for a weapon(34)". In this journey she seemed to immortalize herself. She was trained to be a warrior, which was unrealstic. She became a man (dressing in mens armor/taking her fathers place in war disguised by jst tieing her hair up), which is unrealistic. She gav herself such a presence and aora that the rabbit simply threw itself into the fire b/c it knew that's what she wanted it to do(demanding and powerful w/o saying a word), which is unrealstic. "The rabbit and i studied each other...it turned its face towards me and jumped into the fire...I ate it, knowing the rabbit had sacrificeditself for me. It had made me a gift of meat(26)". Kingston goes on to say that as she was about to leave for war a man joined her, then she mounted her horse and a rider from miles away came to join her, then entire village joined(and she was picky in who she chose), which again is unrealistic. "When I opened my mouth, the songs poured out and were loud enough for the whole encampment to hear; my army streched out for a mile(37)". She prides herself on being a fierce leader and wining battles and taking her revenge. Later in the chapter she finds herself losing her "manlyness" and becoming a woman again. This is where she gets captured in the woods and gets defeated. "It was during this lonely time. when any high cry made the milk spill from my breasts, that I got careless...springing off rom behind the branches came the enemy...they pinned me to the earth...(41)". If she was such a great warrior and trained for fifteen years then her sudden defeat is unrealistic. She says " I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so there is no room for paradoxes(29)". Women were trained to be a wife or a slave. Here she is defying that and thinking outside the box, which is thinking like a man or a woman who does not want to be married.
Towards the end of Kingstons story, the narrative becomes cartoon-like:
"who are you? What do you want?"
"I want your life in payment.."
"I haven't done anything to you..."
"I am a female avenger. Regret what you have done before i kill you."
"I don't know what you're talking about"
Then she shows him her breasts and since he is amazed by it, this is when she gets a chance to kill him.
Question: Why does Kigston end the story this way and what does it mean? Is this the end of her story? Is she poking fun at herself?
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2 comments:
She is a "female avenger"; she is a woman warrior. As a writer, Kingston can create any shock in her dream or story to express and revolt the infraction of woman's rights. Her stories will never be end in any one story, since she utilize her writting, which as her power, to roust up woman.
She is the female avenger and in saying all those things she is referring to how others will see her as a woman, as a writer. She is crossing barriers that many women hadn't dared to do yet. Many saw this as a wrong thing to do and that they didn't deserve to live if they went against the ways of life that a woman should follow. By her saying she didn't know what he was talking about shes being sneaky and not letting him put her down just because he threatened her, just like no one or nothing stopped her from publishing her book.
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