Given that "Literature and Writing" is also an important theme for The Woman Warrior, we might be able to predict that Kingston's interest in storytelling makes it clear that it's hard to know what truth is. The more we think with Kingston about storytelling and the role of memory and the imagination, the more we get the feeling that truth depends on who is telling the story. With lots of folklore tying her stories together, Kingston shows us that fantasy is a big part of our sense of reality. After all, is there more to reality than stories?
Questions About Versions of Reality
- What is the effect of intertwining memory, folklore and myth in Kingston's autobiographical stories?
- What does Kingston learn from her mother's talk stories?
- Do the stories that Kingston grew up on confuse her sense of reality or enrich it?
- Is it possible to differentiate fact from fiction? What's the point?
Chew on This
Through folklore and her relatives' stories, Kingston imagines other ways of being, thus expanding her sense of reality.
Maxine Hong Kingston's combination of autobiography, biography, and mythology complicates a singular sense of place and time that simulates the experience of a first-generation American.