Chinese-American Woman in an American Culture

As most of you have noted, the overall problem seems to be determining what it means to be a Chinese-American woman in an American culture. It also asks what it means to be a woman or human being in American culture. There are several conflicts to note. There is the individual vs the communal in China as compared to the same situation in America. There is the individual vs the family and there is the Chinese vs the American



heritage of the narrator. Which is she to be? Chinese? American? When is it appropriate to be one or the other? Who is she? The No-Name Woman seems as much to be the narrator as the narrator's aunt. You should notice that Kingston does not give the narrator a name anymore than she does the aunt. The narrator is expected to participate in the punishment of the dead aunt, and yet, as an American she questions that expectation. But she is a rebel only in herself (if at all)....she is unable to actually overcome the power of her Chinese cultural background.

Her Chinese aunt, of course, was a rebel. She was a married woman in China who had an extramarital affair which resulted in a child. There is no doubt of her guilt. Whether or not her punishment was just is part of the problem for the narrator. You remember, her mother tells her the story of her aunt only because the narrator is entering puberty. This is a subject not to be discussed again...it is a warning for her to take care. So she wonders about the aunt. And in her wondering, her western/American values begin to surface. She tries in many ways to justify what her aunt did, but her justifications are western. She does understand that based on Chinese customs, her aunt was guilty and deserved to be forgotten. But she sympathizes with her aunt. Why? Because she knows it could happen to her, and she knows what the results would be for her as well. She knows why her mother has told her the story, and in her way, she is questioning the right of her family to punish so severely. She needs to excuse her aunt....otherwise, she could not excuse herself should she suffer the same circumstances.

Remember, she tries to excuse her aunt on the assumption that she might have simply been a victim of a prearranged marriage. If she didn't know her husband, why should she be held responsible. Because she is Chinese, not American. She then tries to excuse her based on the possibility that she was the victim of rape.

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