"The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston

"'You must not tell anyone... what I am going to tell you.'" (3) Is this not an ironic beginning for a memoir? When in fact, Maxine Hong Kingston, the author and narrator of The Woman Warrior, is doing the exact opposite, and telling everyone. The use of voice in her memoirs is not present merely on a literal level, but also a figurative. The entire book is a means of expression through a voice which cannot be found within Kingston; a way to say that which cannot be said. From the first page to the last chapter, Kingston describes her struggle to find a voice in a foreign land which she has lived in her entire life.
The land she lived in was made distant by her mother's talk-stories, which draw on both Chinese myths and life. There is at least one talk-story in each chapter. Most are told by Brave Orchid to Kingston when she was a young girl. …