Monday, February 8, 2010

A Clash of Traditions – A Tale

A Clash of Traditions – A Tale

Maxine Hong Kingston’s “No Name Woman”, focuses on deep rooted traditions.

Maxine’s mother, a traditionalist, decided that Maxine is of age and swears her to secrecy when she shares the family secret with Maxine and begins by saying, “You must not tell anyone”. Secrets are common in this society and traditions are often taught through stories and passed on from one generation to another; these stories often change and are modified to serve a particular purpose. In this particular case, Maxine’s mother has made her complicit and bound her to the family secret; her intent was to teach Maxine a lesson on what happens to an adulterous.

It was customary for married women to be practical they were expected to pay little to no attention to their physical presentation. As a result, Maxine’s mother was powered by necessity as she planted vegetables in place of lawns; she wore a no nonsense blunt-cut hairstyle or had it pulled back in a tight bun and as was customary she obeyed the men. In contrast, Maxine’s aunt was extraordinary and untraditional in the way she “plied her comb” and “combined individuality into her bob”, she spent hours “mirror gazing”, tending to her eyebrows and the hair on her temple and allowed herself the “extravagance of a lover”.

In short, the aunt’s way-of-life was contradictory to her society which resulted in the outraged villagers teaching her a lesson by attacking her home and person. Subsequently, Maxine’s aunt is shunned - not by just the villagers but by the entire family who chose to forget her, called her “ghost” and condemned her aunt to an afterlife of begging. The consequent spite-suicide was her aunt’s last repudiation to a way-of-life a customary standard or expectant behavior which she clearly rejected.

In conclusion, there is certain fatalism to this story as Maxine breaks from tradition and pays homage to her not-so-forgotten aunt and in doing so confronts her own duplicities, contradictions and learns about her own Chinese culture.

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