Brave Orchid, the husband, and Kingston

In this part of the book, Brave Orchid is determined to reunite her sister with her husband in Los Angeles.  Even though it is obvious that her brother-in-law has made a new life for himself in America and doesn’t want to have anything to do with her sister, Brave Orchid believes that her plan will work.  She reminds Moon Orchid that it is her right as his first wife to reclaim what is truly hers.  In many ways, Brave Orchid’s actions are irrational and overdramatic.  She has her son drive them to her brother-in-law’s office, trick him into coming down, and tells Moon Orchid, “I’ll hit him.  I’ll protect you.  I’ll hit him back.  The two of us will knock him down and make him listen” (Kingston 145).  Even though it may seem like Brave Orchid’s intentions are genuine, she goes too far and is insensitive toward her sister’s wishes.  If Brave Orchid had listened to Moon Orchid, had not forced her sister to see her husband, I believe that Moon Orchid would be well and happy, not crazy and living in an asylum.

Despite Moon Orchid's tears and obvious disapproval of the whole situation, Brave Orchid forces her to sit "straight" and meet her husband.

Nevertheless, Brave Orchid isn’t the only one to blame for Moon Orchid’s mental breakdown.  Last class, we talked about whether or not the doctor’s actions were moral.  In some ways, he was wrong, and in other ways, I’m not too sure.  For instance, I don’t know if I can blame him for starting a new life.  It would depend on the situation, if he really fell in love with his new wife and cared for this new life.  I know that marriage is important and should not be dealt with lightly, but sometimes people grow apart.  Then again, sometimes people can grow closer with effort.  I just don’t know.  It all depends!  I CAN say that I believe it was wrong of him to lead his new life in secrecy.  Sure, he continued to send her money, but by being with a new woman and starting a new family, he was, in many ways, still abandoning Moon Orchid.  I think he should have been open and honest.  He should have told Moon Orchid the truth.  I also don’t think that he should have treated Moon Orchid and Brave Orchid the way that he did.  He was disrespectful and cruel.  When Brave Orchid suggests he take her sister back, he snaps back, “’Look at her.  She’d never fit into an American household.  I have important American guests who come inside my house to eat.’  He turned to Moon Orchid, ‘You can’t talk to them.  You can barely talk to me’” (Kingston 153).

I can't say whether or not it was wrong of the doctor to begin a new life. I can say that it was wrong of him to treat Moon Orchid so dishonestly, cruelly, and inconsiderately..

The theme of not fitting in continues in the final chapter.  Kingston talks about her childhood days and about how she herself felt alienated.  She remembers enjoying silence and not talking during school.  She remembers the days when her mother would do crazy things and force her and her siblings to act similarly.  She says at one point, “We brothers and sisters did not look at one another.  She would do something awful, something embarrassing.  She’d already been hinting that during the next eclipse we slam pot lids together to scare the frog from swallowing the moon” (Kingston 169).  When her mother sends her to demand sweets from the local pharmacy, Kingston remembers feeling ridiculous.  She says, “I felt the weight and immensity of things impossible to explain to the druggist” (Kingston 171).  For Kingston, growing up Chinese-American is difficult and often indescribable to others.

In school, Kingston enjoyed silence and was often alienated by her peers.

As a result, Kingston felt alone as a child.  She confesses, “There were secrets never to be said in front of the ghosts, immigration secrets whose telling could get us sent back to China.  Sometimes I hated the ghosts for not letting us talk; sometimes I hated the secrecy of the Chinese” (Kingston 183).  In school, Kingston reveals that she had developed a deep hatred for one particular girl who never spoke.  She says, “She [the little girl] stood still, and I did not want to look at her face anymore; I hated fragility” (Kingston 176).  In a lot of ways, I think that Kingston saw herself in the little girl.  Like the silent girl, Kingston rarely talked.  Like the little girl, Kingston felt at odds with her Chinese background.  She warns the little girl, “That’s all you are if you don’t talk.  If you don’t talk, you can’t have a personality” (Kingston 180), and in so doing, warns herself of the dangers of keeping quiet.

Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior. NY: Vintage Books, 1989. pb.

The New and the Old

I was shocked to find an exact picture illustrating Brave Orchid's story. I never knew that monkey feasts were real and thinking of it terrifies and saddens me.

Brave Orchid’s stories are truly frightening, and I cannot imagine as a young girl what it would be like to hear such stories.  I cannot imagine having my own mother tell me about ghosts, people getting stoned to death, or eating animals alive.  When Brave Orchid talks about monkey feasts and spooning out the brains of live monkeys, Kingston confesses, “Then the monkey words would unsettle me; a curtain flapped loose inside my brain.  I have wanted to say, ‘Stop it.  Stop it,’ but not once did I say, ‘Stop it’ (Kingston 91).  Brave Orchid’s stories are only one instance of Kingston’s struggle to unite her Chinese and American identities.  Throughout the story, Kingston proves the difficulties of growing up Asian American and the distance separating her from her parents and their old traditions.

For some Asian American families, like Kingston's, having dinner is a quiet activity.

The differences between her parents’ culture and her own can be seen through her relationships and interactions with them.  For instance, during dinner, Brave Orchid refuses to have anybody talk while eating.  Nevertheless, Kingston and her siblings would work out a sign language or “spoke English, which their parents didn’t seem to hear” (Kingston 123).  When Moon Orchid, Kingston’s aunt, arrives, she notices the children “looked directly into her eyes as if they were looking for lies.  Rude.  Accusing.  They never lowered their gaze; they hardly blinked” (Kingston 133).  In these ways, Kingston underscores the gap between her world and her parents’ old world, their vastly different customs and traditions.  Even the word “home” carries a different meaning for Kingston and her siblings.

Even through Brave Orchid’s eyes, her children appear almost as foreigners.  She speaks of them not as her children but as strangers.  When she waits for Moon Orchid at the airport, Brave Orchid remarks on her children’s behavior, saying, “There were stupid, surely they weren’t adults yet” (Kingston 121).  While showing Moon Orchid her children’s accomplishments, Brave Orchid doubts their abilities and reflects, “It was hard to believe that they could do the things the trophies said they did” (Kingston 129).  Initially, I thought Brave Orchid was being cruel toward her children.  However, I have come to understand the reasons for her thoughts.  After all, as an immigrant, Brave Orchid has had to fight to survive, whereas her children have grown up in America benefiting from her sacrifices and hardships.  In comparison to her life, theirs has been easy.

Brave Orchid even doubts her children's accomplishments.

Perhaps the distance between Brave Orchid and her children is made even larger by her sense of superiority over them.  Knowing the struggles and sacrifices she has had to make to survive in America, Brave Orchid often comes across as overly critical of others.  She sees her children as useless and disappointing.  Even her sister, who has it easy since Brave Orchid is the one who pays for her flight and takes care of her upon her arrival, “wasn’t very bright, and she had not gotten any smarter in the last thirty years” (Kingston 130).  She observes her niece and says she “was like her mother, the lovely, useless type” (Kingston 128).  Brave Orchid seems judgmental and harsh in these ways.  Whether it is her nature, her old Chinese traditions, or the result of her hardships, Brave Orchid proves to be another reason for the widening distance between her and her children.

Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior. NY: Vintage Books, 1989. pb.

Sexism and the Chinese Culture

Kingston's novel is full of rich and powerful imagery.

Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior is a novel full of rich and powerful imagery.  From the very first pages, she takes us to an entirely foreign world.  Kingston’s imagination runs wild as she creates stories about her aunt and why she became pregnant.  Later, Kingston fantasizes life as a warrior, leading armies of men to battle and bearing the powerful Sky Sword.  While reading Kingston’s stories is fun and entertaining, I can’t help but feel frustration over issues of gender and strict Chinese customs.

What is most surprising to me is that Kingston’s mother is sexist.  To Brave Orchid, females are worthless.  After telling Kingston the story of the No-Name-Woman, Brave Orchid says, “Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to you.  Don’t humiliate us.  You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you had never been born.  The villagers are watchful” (Kingston 5).  I can’t believe that Brave Orchid can be so cruel toward Kingston’s aunt and offer such a violent story as a warning to her daughter.  After all, Brave Orchid had been a successful doctor who studied and made a life of her own.  Nevertheless, Kingston’s mother continues to place little value on the role of females and treats Kingston accordingly.  Kingston confides that after having brothers she realized her parents’ favoritism, saying, “Did you roll an egg on my face like that when I was born?”  “Did you have a full-month party for me?”  “Did you turn on all the lights?”  “Did you send my picture to Grandmother?”  “Why not?  Because I’m a girl?  Is that why not?”  “Why didn’t you teach me English?”  “You like having me beaten up at school, don’t you?” (Kingston 46).

Of the many sexist phrases in the novel, "It is more profitable to raise geese than daughters" seems to be a prevalent one in the Chinese culture.

While sexism is certainly evident in Kingston’s family, overall sexism is a predominant part of the Chinese culture.  In the chapter, Woman Warrior, Kingston encounters the baron, who in an attempt to save his life “tried to be charming, to appeal to me man to man” and says to her, “Oh, come now.  Everyone takes the girls when he can.  The families are glad to be rid of them.  ‘Girls are maggots in the rice.’  ‘It is more profitable to raise geese than daughters.’”  He quoted to me the sayings I hated” (Kingston 43).  Kingston, her mother, her family in general, are products of their society and in this way are ruled by negative views of the role of women.  Growing up Chinese-American, the injustice of old Chinese customs become ever more clear to Kingston.  She says, “When I visit the family now, I wrap my American successes around me…I am worthy of eating the food” (Kingston 52).

For much of the first half of the novel, Kingston criticizes sexism and ultimately the cruelty of her culture in general.  She pities her aunt and realizes “The real punishment was not the raid swiftly inflicted by the villagers, but the family’s deliberately forgetting her.  Her betrayal so maddened them, they saw to it that she would suffer forever, even after death” (Kingston 16).  In Kingston’s mind, it seems, her aunt had been nothing but a helpless victim.  She sympathizes with her and creates stories, telling her aunt’s situation in a more positive light.  Later, Kingston even criticizes her upbringing and the Chinese parent-child relationship.  When her mother hits her, she says, “I’m going to remember never to hit or to scold my children for crying, I thought, because then they will only cry more” (Kingston 44).  While the art of Kingston’s story telling, the rich imagery and lyrical style, are all proof of the positive influence of her Chinese culture, Kingston also points to the negative aspects of its old customs.  At the end of White Tigers, Kingston states, “The swordswoman and I are not so dissimilar.  May my people understand the resemblance soon so that I can return to them” (Kingston 53).

Maxine Hong Kingston successfully shares her story through the power of her writing and warns us all against the consequences of sexism.

Race, Family Relationships, and Sexuality

The stories of Anthony, Johnny, and Vincent are interesting not only for their focus on race and culture in America, but also for their exploration of family relationships and sexuality.  Anthony tells a story of his mother’s abandonment, his foster parents’ sexual abuse, and his struggle living as a black Korean.  Johnny’s story involves living in a religious, Korean family and dealing with the consequences of exposing his homosexuality.  Finally, Vincent tells the story of his own sexual exploration as well as his difficulty with accepting Chinese customs.

The stories in Balancing Two Worlds are honest in illustrating the true nature of race and culture, family relationships, and sexuality.

All three stories highlight a predominant theme of race and culture.  Anthony says in the beginning of his story, “No one I lived with could fully understand what it was to be a mix of two separate minority worlds” (Anthology 865).  He struggles to balance the culture of his black father and the culture of his Korean mother.  Because his father left him at a young age, “The pride [he] […] had for [his] […] mother’s heritage was countered by the overwhelming negative feeling [...] when she would overemphasize [his] Korreanness” (Anthology 866).  While Anthony struggles to find a balance, Johnny and Vincent struggle to find any sense of pride at all.  For Johnny, being Korean entails “upholding the dignity of our people.  This meant doing well in everything and abiding by God’s rules” (870).  In this way, Johnny struggles to unite two major aspects of his self—being Korean and being a homosexual.  Similarly, Vincent fails to see the benefits of his culture as a child and confides, “I tried to dissociate myself from most things that appeared to be Chinese—after all, I just wanted to fit in with my white friends (Anthology 883).

Phrases like these are derogatory and hurtful. After learning the meaning of "FOB" Johnny does everything he can to separate himself, even separating himself from what makes him Chinese.

Reading these stories, I also realized the importance of family relationships.  For Anthony, Johnny, and Vincent, their backgrounds largely determine the men that they will become.  Having been abandoned by his mother so frequently as a child, Anthony reflects on his current relationships with women in general: “It is easier for me to become physically involved with a woman than to invest any serious emotions or real love” (Anthology 867).  Anthony’s withstanding pain and insecurity prohibits him from developing any real, meaningful relationships.  For Johnny, family can also be the source of pain and regret.  When he reveals to his family that he is gay, his mother asks, “How can you do this?…You embarrass us like this…you cannot be this way…” (Anthology 872).  Even later, she sets out to have a doctor “fix” Johnny.  Likewise, Vincent sees the detrimental effect family relationships can have on children.  Having had a distant, often-violent father, Vincent understands that his father “is but a prisoner of his own upbringing” (Anthology 887) and says upon this observation, “I had vowed to myself that I would not subject my own children to the same painful pattern of absenteeism” (Anthology 882).  Rather than have the negative aspects of his family affect him, Vincent exemplifies the change that is possible in overcoming the cycle of abusive, neglectful parenting.

While reading these accounts on race and culture as well as family was unsettling, what shocked me the most was reading about Johnny’s homosexuality and the opposition he faced.  I could not believe that his own family, especially his own mother and father, could be so cruel in dealing with the situation.  Never did they consider Johnny’s feelings or what he was going through.  Instead, they cared more about keeping up appearances, abiding by their Korean culture and religion.  When his mother cries, “Yes!  Yes they are all the bad!  How do you know that they are not bad?  Don’t you know that God said so about the gay.   God HATES the gay.  They are all bad.  They are all going to hell!” (Anthology 873), I could not believe her insensitivity, her ignorance, and was amused by the plain irony of her words.  (I for one do not believe that God can hate.)  I also could not believe the number of specialists that Johnny’s mother took him to.  Even Johnny was incredulous, saying, “…the others were clear indications that there was still a great deal of ignorance and homophobia in existence, even among educated tiers of our society.  Before this time, I never thought legitimate psychiatrists in the United States would feel that homosexuality was something to be changed” (Anthology 878).

I cannot understand how people can believe that God hates homosexuals. I know I'm not religious, but for me, God has always symbolized love, understanding, and forgiveness.

Appreciating Diversity

Growing up, I hated it when people would assume and try to make out who I was based on my appearance.  Like Miguel, I would encounter people who, upon meeting me, would ask, “‘Where are you from?’ And after a short pause, ‘Where are your parents from?’” (Anthology 842).  Even worse, I hated it when people would assume immediately that I was Chinese or Japanese.  It bothered me that some people needed to label me, that this sort of information mattered.  Similar to the characters of these readings, I struggled with the fact that the color of my skin, my appearance, was what mattered the most to some people.

Why do we constantly need to label others?

My parents immigrated to the United States following the Vietnam War.  With the little that they had, my parents were forced to build new lives.  On top of learning English and adapting to the American culture, my parents juggled multiple jobs and managed to support a family of three girls.  In the evenings, they would take classes at the community college to earn their degrees and eventually obtain higher-paying jobs.  Their sacrifices and hard work provided stability and comfort for my sisters and I.

I am grateful for the life my parents have provided for my sisters and I.

Although I am grateful for my parent’s hard work, living in an upper-middle class, white neighborhood made me ever more aware of my differences.  Not only my skin but also my life in general was different from that of my friends.  Unlike many of my friends’ moms, my mom worked.  While their moms frequently volunteered and helped with school events, my mom was always absent.  While my friends’ moms promptly picked them up from school or soccer practice, my mom would often come hours later because of work or a meeting.  At a young age, “I looked down on my mother’s job…and was ashamed” (Anthology 848) for not having the same type of mother as my friends.

When I was younger, I knew I was different, and I didn't like it.

Only until later, as I grew up, I began to realize and appreciate my mother’s hard work.  I know that she would have wanted to be at all the carnivals and soccer games just as much as I wanted her to be there.  But, her job was her means of providing for me.  Similar to Norma, “Now, I see the beauty in her work” (Anthology 851).  I have come to see that all the negative aspects of my “Asian-Americanness” are heavily overshadowed by the positive.  For one, because of my parents and their struggles, I have learned invaluable life lessons.  I have learned the importance of education and hard work.  I have learned to appreciate all that my parents have given me and to take advantage of opportunities.  For another, I have come to value the richness of my family and our culture, of diversity itself.

I don't know what I would do without my Vietnamese roots, without its culture, traditions, and most importantly, delicious FOOD! (Tofu pho...hehe)

What I viewed before with shame and embarrassment, I now view with great pride and appreciation.  My Vietnamese roots have given me so much.  In the same way, I am glad to be an American as well.  I am grateful to have been “destined to live in two worlds—the world my parents were brought up in and which they brought to the United States with them, and the rest of society, where I gained a sense of “‘Americanness’” (Anthology 849).  In a way, I believe my own differences have made me more appreciative of others’ differences.

Once I reached middle and high school, I became more exposed to diversity.  I noticed, like Alessandro, that many students would congregate and befriend others of a similar race.  I realized the cliques of races “In the cafeteria, [where] most of the black and Latino students always sat together in one corner of the dining hall” (Anthology 857).  I couldn’t understand why it had to be that way.  While I had a few Asian friends, I didn’t want to limit myself to one group of people.  I remember loving the fact that I had best friends from a variety of backgrounds and that I could learn from their different cultures.  I knew who I was and was comfortable with my identity, but I also knew that being “Asian-American” didn’t define me entirely.  I knew that there was more to me than just that and was grateful for the people who recognized that as well.

Morrison’s Influence

In the last chapter of Toni Morrison’s novel, Pecola carries a conversation with her imaginary friend.  Pecola seems to have lost her mind and believes that she has blue eyes.  Staring at a mirror, Pecola and her imaginary friend discuss the blueness of her eyes, how “They get prettier each time I look at them” (Morrison 201).  Ironically, though Pecola gets her blue eyes, she is far worse off than she is at the start of the novel.  As the dialogue continues, Pecola and her imaginary friend reveal what has happened after Pecola’s painful experience with Cholly; Cholly has raped Pecola a second time, Cholly and Sammy have left, and Pecola has given birth prematurely to a stillborn child.  In these ways, the book closes on a dark, bleak outlook.

Pecola stares at the blue eyes she does not have and talks to the friend that she does not have. Morrison's ending, in this way, is dark and hopeless.

Toni Morrison’s ending is powerful for its effect on readers and society in general.  The hopelessness of Pecola’s situation—her dilusion, isolation, and separation from the community—illustrates the consequences of racism.  After all, Pecola’s troubles ultimately stem from racism; her mother believes whiteness is the standard of beauty, her father was humiliated as a teenager by white men, and her peers continually call her ugly.  Racism and cruelty in The Bluest Eye force us to look within ourselves and change for the better.  In the afterword, Morrison says, “The novel pecks away at the gaze that condemned her” (Morrison 210).  Just as we sympathize with Pecola’s vulnerability, we also identify with the perpetrators of her misery.  How often have we judged others solely based on their appearance?  Consciously or subconsciously, each one of us holds standards of beauty, and Morrison brings us face to face with this harsh reality through several characters of the novel.

Reading is a way of connecting with others' ideas, learning, and reevaluating our own beliefs. Thus, Morrison's story indeed "pecks away" at us.

For instance, in the beginning we see Pecola being harassed by a group of young boys.  They make fun of her for being black and having a father that sleeps naked.  Later, Maureen befriends her only to turn on her and call her “ugly!  Black and ugly black e mos” (Morrison 73).  Even Geraldine, a middle-class black woman, calls Pecola a “nasty little black bitch” (Morrison 92).  Countless incidents of racism occur throughout the book, but what shocked me the most was the community’s reaction to Pecola after news spread of her rape.  Folks criticize her pregnancy, saying, “‘Ought to be a law: two ugly people doubling up like that to make more ugly.  Be better off in the ground’” (Morrison 190).  To them, ugliness makes a person unworthy of life.  Their insensitivity to Pecola’s situation made me angry and moved me to reflect on my own life, to change for the better and treat others more compassionately.

In this way, Toni Morrison’s novel touches people and in general affects society for the better.  Pecola’s story and the cruelty done to her because of racism effectively “lead readers…into an interrogation of themselves for the smashing” (Morrison 211).  I think that’s the greatest thing Morrison, or any writer actually, can achieve through literature.  By sharing stories and changing lives, little by little, one by one, they can make huge differences in the world in the end.  I know that Pecola’s story will stay with me and that Morrison’s writing has definitely affected my overall perspective.

Feeling in The Bluest Eye

It makes sense for authors to focus on emotions.  After all, if I wrote a novel or essay, I wouldn’t want people to just read it and cast it aside.  I would want them to read and respond to it.  I would want my work to somehow influence and change people for the better.  As Professor Bump’s essay, “Racism and Appearance in The Bluest Eye: A Template for an Ethical Emotive Criticism,” states, emotions are necessary for any change, and in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, emotions indeed play a major role.  I realized that her writing made me “’feel something profoundly’” (Anthology 330).

The greatest works of art are those that resonate the most with us and make us feel.

For the most part, the novel made me feel angry, annoyed, and frustrated.  I had a hard time understanding Pecola’s situation.  If a group of boys started teasing me, I would be taken aback.  Nevertheless, I wouldn’t let them get to me, and I’d somehow defend myself.  Pecola, on the other hand, submits herself completely to their cruelty.  Only when Frieda and Claudia come to her rescue is Pecola safe again.  Claudia confesses, “Her pain antagonized me.  I wanted to open her up, crisp her edges, ram a stick down that hunched and curving spine, force her to stand erect and spit the misery out on the streets” (Morrison 73).  Countless other times Pecola fails to stand up for herself—when Maureen yells at her and when Junior deceives her.

Many times, Pecola seems helpless and vulnerable.

While many of Pecola’s experiences made me feel angry, annoyed, and frustrated, at the same time, I felt sympathy for her.  For her whole life, Pecola believes she is ugly and prays desperately every day to be made beautiful.  Everyone around her defines beauty so narrowly and arbitrarily that her definition of beauty is equally limited.  Even now, magazines, advertising, movies, television shows, etc. still seem to rule our definition of beauty.  Girls try to lose weight to be as thin as models.  Some even go as far as getting plastic surgery to be society’s version of “pretty.”  The girls of Morrison’s novel shed light on “one of those embarrassing facts of life…a deep secret that is always between us but we feel we must keep from our consciousness” (Anthology 333).

The video below is for Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.  While ads, billboards, magazines surround us and seem to define beauty, this video proves that looks can be deceiving!

In this way, I’m not as angry, annoyed, or frustrated with Pecola or the other characters of the novel.  The more I learn about them, the more I am able to sympathize with them and fully understand their situations.  Above all, “Suffering with her [Pecola], knowing that pain consciously, feeling it, acknowledging it openly and directly, most of us will be less likely to inflict in on others, and more likely to take action against those who do” (Anthology 339).  My emotions, my anger, annoyance, frustration, and sympathy, all help me read and learn from Morrison’s story.  Ultimately, Morrison effectively proves that there’s more to looks, more to the color of our skin.