After reading The Woman Warrior, you get the impression that she worked hard to put together her book. Her memories come from myths and anecdotes told to her by her mother. She bounces from the old family tales, to the tales of her mother and then to tales of her aunt, Moon Orchid. Kingston was the expected subject of the autobiography, but it seems more like a tale of her family history. She talks about the act of speech. It becomes a way to act out against the Chinese community. The chanting of the descendant line shows a type of fellowship and bond between the women. Her mother built a verbal China around her child so she would not become a "foreign ghost". Kingston is frightened by the gap in the China her mother has created for her and America. The gaps are speech, but eventually lead to adolescent rebellion and secrets. In the end, when Kingston tortures the silent Chinese girl, it is her way of punishing herself. Kingston shows us the central problem in her life, she is not completely Chinese, she is "part hovering ghost". She often removes herself from the tales to provide a more objective point of view. Kinston creates a partial fictional reality so she can re-enter it imaginarily as though she were the reader. The major explosion comes when Maxine tries to tell her mother her secrets and the screaming dialogue that follows ends the middle of the book. She constructs her memories into a pattern that she can learn from. "This autobiography embodies the labor of a young woman to develop a large sympathy for her mother, a woman who was able to stride across the ocean when forty years old and then bear six children. Once Kingston sees her mother, she can turn and she herself as an entire and complex adult- (1).
He talks about how the book explains how she grew up. Though they are Often complex and terrifying, the phantoms of our mind can and do become real. The "Ghost from Chinese past" becomes a real being in her life.
