Reconstructing the Past: Reproduction of Trauma in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior

Abstract

This article interprets The Woman Warrior as reproduction and re-composition of unspeakable traumatic memories and experience of Chinese-American women who live in an uncanny world and in diasporic condition. Drawing on trauma theory, this article studies the effects of various traumas upon the psychology of characters and examines how Kingston utilizes intertextuality as a way of demonstrating traumatic repetition and promoting healing. Intertextually revising the Chinese legend enables characters to conflate the unspeakable experience into their cognitive systems and to reconstruct a past free from trauma.