Woman Warrior

Maxine Kingston's Woman warrior has been a controversial addition to the literature written by Chinese-American writers. The writer has tried to answer the critical question of Chinese-American identity and hence been criticized for adopting an orientalist framework to win approval of the west. The woman warrior speaks of a culture that neatly fits the description of the "Other" in the orientalist framework. It appears alien, remote and immensely degrading to women who were treated like non-human beings by Chinese chauvinistic society. However things changed for the generation of Chinese that grew up in the U.S. Or at least that is what Kingston wants us to believe.

Frank Chin has been the most vocal critic of Kingston's who accused her "of reinforcing white fantasies about Chinese-Americans" (Chin, 1991) and claimed that writers like Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan and David Henry Hwang who won approval of the American white...
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