In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston struggles with her identity which reflects her gender and cultural ideas. The composer develops the complex novel by stretching it between memory and fiction, which causes responders to wonder if the stories she recounts are factual or just some "story-telling". She wants to show the responders that she is a woman warrior. She shows this by telling stories of which she has experienced or her family has gone through. The novel consists of many difficult issues that Kingston encounters in having a Chinese-American identity. Kingston once told her Hawaiian teacher, "We Chinese can't sing "land where our fathers died." She argued with me about politics, while I mean because of curses." She reflects upon the difficulty of aligning herself with American culture in ways that would seem to contradict the customs of her more traditional, Chinese heritage. Many elements of Western culture differ significantly from the Asian culture. These differences make assimilation difficult for both immigrants and the children of immigrants, who are often raised as if they were in their parents" country of birth.
In Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Jane's childhood lacks love and the experiences necessary in order to maintain healthy relationships, therefore causing her to go on a search for her identity. Because of the abuse imposed upon her, she created a sense of independence and dignity. In contrast, the nineteenth century Victorian era woman needed wealth or position to avoid a life of drudgery. Women were viewed as possessions men owned. They were not permitted to develop nor expected to, and even venturing out on their own was considered inappropriate. During the era in which Jane Eyre was published, women were steered away from independence, confidence, and self-fulfillment and guided toward an existence of submission, dependence, and ignorance. Jane is an orphan, considered as having the lowest status in society.
