The theme of women and their roles, touched on by many of my peers already, is arguably the most important theme driving the novel. Though we can look at this theme from a multitude of different angles, what I found most interesting was the constant juxtaposition of the expected roles of women.
On the one hand, Kingston’s mother tells her stories of strong and independent women like Fa Mu Lan and the woman who invented white crane boxing. She muses that “perhaps women were once so da ngerous that they had to have their feet bound” (19). These stories her mother tells her present images of women who are independent and brave and valued for their independence bravery.
Opposed to this role that she is expected to play is that of the submissive and obedient future housewife. In her family, “the heavy, deep-rooted women were to maintain the past against the flood, safe for returning [but]…the work of preservation demands that the feelings playing in one’s gut not be turned into actions” (8). This is how women were expected to act, and, unlike the warrior woman, girls and future housewives were not values at all. Even her aunt, who rebelled even against fate by “digging out [an unlucky spot] with a hot needle” (10), gives in to the pressure to act this way. Even though she was terrified of the demands of her lover, “she obeyed him; she always did as she as told” (6).
The author grows up hearing these stories whose characters directly contradict each other and understandable finds herself conflicted about her own role as a woman. Kingston is inspired by these role models but also feels pressure from her mother to be like them. Her mother exerts this pressure indirectly: she told her daughter that she would “grow up a wife and a slave, but she taught me the song of the warrior woman, Fa Mu Lan. I would have to grow up a warrior woman” (20). The unspoken expectation weighs heavily on Kingston, and she is unsure how she should approach this task, or even if she can do it at all. As she explains, she “could not figure out what was my village [to be saved]. And it was important that I do something big and fine” (46).
Additionally, Kingston not only has the conflicting pressure to conform exerted on her when she is at home, but she also feels uncomfortably out of place in the American environment at her school. First of all, the images of feminine beauty are conflicting. Her American context tells her that “walking erect (knees straight, toes pointed forward, not pigeon-toed, which is Chinese-feminine) and speaking in an inaudible voice” (10) is beautiful and feminine. However, her Chinese context is exactly the opposite; speaking quietly is strange and only for the sick. This juxtaposition is easy to see depending on whether the author is in American school or Chinese school. At American school, she is silent and shy. At Chinese school, she and many of the other girls are loud and energetic.
Both the conflicting roles of women within her Chinese culture and the conflicting image of women between her American and Chinese contexts leaves the author under a lot of pressure from completely different sides. To cope with the disunified and disorienting set of expectations pressed upon her, she does her best to follow her own path.
