Maxine Hong Kingston | |
Maxine Hong KingstonMaxine Hong Kingston, "Silence" Maxine Hong Kingston (1940- ) was born in Stockton, California, the daughter
of Chinese immigrants. She grew up speaking Cantonese and English, and
graduated from the University of California with an A.B. in 1962. Her
work combines myth and history, folk tale and fact, and is often autobiographical.
The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976) uses
the "talk stories" of her female relatives to tell the tale of her early
life. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award. China Men
(1980) tells about her male relatives, with a female point of view still
prominent. She's also written a novel, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake
Book (1989), with a protagonist bearing a name with a distinctly literary
pedigree: Wittman Ah Sing. Her work also appears in periodicals such as
the New York Times and Ms. magazine. "Silence,"
her remembrance about seeking a voice back in grade school, is an excerpt
from The Woman Warrior. | QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION | CONTENT - When did "school become a misery" for this author? What
was it like before this point?
- What distinction does Kingston make between speaking and reading
out loud?
- Why do you think the author refers to her sister as "second-born"?
- How does the author's experience in her Chinese school differ from
that in her American school?
- Why does the young Kingston believe that her teacher from Hawaii
"should have understood about us"?
- What are some of the differences the author mentions between English
words and Chinese ideographs? What effect did these differences have
upon her use of language?
- What reasons can you come up with for the fact that the author's
parents "never signed anything unnecessary"? Use specific
evidence from the reading in your answer.
STRATEGY AND STYLE - Kingston uses dialogue quite sparsely in this piece. How can you
relate this notion to her presentation of her history of speaking in
the classroom?
- Reread the first and last paragraphs. What is different regarding
their timeframe of them as opposed to the timeframe of the body of the
essay? Why, do you think, the author made this choice? What effect does
it have?
- In paragraph twelve, the author uses a metaphor to compare her voice
to an animate object. What is the object and what is the effect of this
comparison?
- List the types of people mentioned in the first paragraph. Into what
category can you put them? Why might have Kingston used this group for
her examples?
| ENGAGING THE TEXT | - Do you like to speak out in class, or do you wish you were invisible
most of the time? How can you relate these feelings with your reading?
Is English your first language? Is there any relation to your classroom
behavior in that regard?
- Think about the sound of your own voice. Do you like it? Do you recall
hearing it from a recording for the first time? If so, how did you react?
How does Kingston use the word voice referring to more than just
the physical act of speaking?
| SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING | - Trace the use of the color black throughout this essay. In what parts
of the essay does the author mention black, and to what effect? How
does the use change over the course of the essay?
- Kingston's father poses these questions: "Why is it I can hear
Chinese from blocks away? Is it that I understand the language? Or is
it they talk loud?" Address and answer them as completely as you
can.
| FOR FURTHER RESEARCH | Do some research to answer these questions: Statistically, which group
of students speaks more in college classrooms, men or women? Is there
any evidence to suggest that this trend has changed or is changing over
time? Does the subject of the class matter? What role does ethnicity play?
Are similar patterns evident in grade school and high school? | WEB CONNECTION | Kingston compares Chinese music to Western music to underline some the
difficulties she and others have had in multicultural interactions. Take
a visit to this Chinese
music archive and listen for a while. If you're not familiar with
Chinese music, does this help you understand the essay better? If you
are, does this site present a good sampling of the form? Explain in either
case. | LINKS | Biographical Here's a very good general start
page about Kingston at Voices From the Gaps. There, you'll
find a photo, a biography, two bibliographies, and some links to get
your research going. An interesting way to see the scope of Kingston's work is to browse
through the list of her citations at the Library
of Congress. What did you find there that you didn't know before
your visit? This blurb
draws parallels between Kingston's life and work, making interesting
comparisons to the "talk-stories" of her youth and her major
writings.
Bibliographical You can find Kingston reading excerpts from The Women Warrior
and China Men by searching here.
What do you find interesting about her reading? You can search for some quotations by Kingston here.
Did you come up with one you might be able to use in your own writing? This is an interview
from the journal Manuscript in which Kingston discusses both
her familial and literary influences in some depth.
Cultural If it's important to your research to put Kingston's work into
a broad historical context, this wealth of introductory
info about Chinese Immigration to the U.S. will provide you with
some help. If it's important to your research to put Kingston's work into a literary
context, check out these Chinese
Mythology links. Would you like to focus on one Chinese heroine? This is an annotated
FAQ
with links about Mulan, a character which you probably already know
something about. Interested in what other Kingston enthusiasts have to say? Here is
a message
board discussing Kingston's life and work.
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