In The Woman Warrior, the author chronicles her successful struggle to rectify her Chinese heritage and her American upbringing; the acceptance of the resulting combination turns her into a modern day warrior woman. Kingston struggles for the cultural acceptance of Chinese-American woman among both the Chinese, who do not value women, and Americans, who have trouble accepting non-European immigrants as beneficial American citizens. Americans, who do not understand her heritage, scorn her Chinese traditions.
In Chinese culture it is common to "talk-story" and in such a way pass on folk tales that contain moral teachings to the listener. A great deal of Kingston's book relates these talk-stories to the reader and then Kingston goes on to write about a portion of her own past (Analysis).
"Don't let your father know that I told you. He denies her. Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you. Don't humiliate us. You wouldn't like to be a forgotten as if you had never been born. The villagers are watchful (p3)." .
Warrior Woman opens with the first talk-story, "No Name Woman", the story of the shame Kingston's aunt brought to the family by having a child while her husband was in America and obviously not the father of her child. Kingston's mother relates this talk-story to her daughter, as a warning so that she will not bring shame upon the family by breaking from the traditional path, eliciting the scorn of their neighbors upon the family (Analysis).
Kingston is forbidden from discussing the story of her aunt with anyone; she makes up stories in her own mind romanticizing her aunt's indiscretion. "My aunt haunts me- her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her"(Kingston). She goes on to say that she does not feel that her aunt means her well. But why does she feel this way? She feels that she is telling on her, that she committed suicide by drowning herself.
