She tested our strengths to establish realities…. those of us in the first generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America”, A woman victim or complicity of a sexual relationship, ended her life as the Chinese tradition commanded: She took with her her newborn daughter. At least that's what Kingston speculates, "It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys" (15). This person was silenced for posterity, remembered only through fragile and fragmentary actions, but apt to become threats when pronounced on time. Of these fragments, Kingston rescued her aunt, "But there is more silence: they want me to participate in their punishment. And I have" (16). For twenty years, Kingston did not dare ask for details about this mysterious aunt, this brave precedent for herself. She never uttered her name. It was an act of bravery to remember her, even to invent her through her own history, The Warrior Woman. It is this shadow-ghost that dominates the first section of the book. In this way Kingston gives back both her personality, and voice. The fact that Kingston never mentioned her undesired aunt, shows how she was forced to not bring her up. She was to remain silent about the story her mom had just told her. No one brought her up, that Kingston did not even know what her name
She tested our strengths to establish realities…. those of us in the first generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America”, A woman victim or complicity of a sexual relationship, ended her life as the Chinese tradition commanded: She took with her her newborn daughter. At least that's what Kingston speculates, "It was probably a girl; there is some hope of forgiveness for boys" (15). This person was silenced for posterity, remembered only through fragile and fragmentary actions, but apt to become threats when pronounced on time. Of these fragments, Kingston rescued her aunt, "But there is more silence: they want me to participate in their punishment. And I have" (16). For twenty years, Kingston did not dare ask for details about this mysterious aunt, this brave precedent for herself. She never uttered her name. It was an act of bravery to remember her, even to invent her through her own history, The Warrior Woman. It is this shadow-ghost that dominates the first section of the book. In this way Kingston gives back both her personality, and voice. The fact that Kingston never mentioned her undesired aunt, shows how she was forced to not bring her up. She was to remain silent about the story her mom had just told her. No one brought her up, that Kingston did not even know what her name