英语读书笔记

"Kuan Kung VS Mulan"

---Interpreting the Image of Fa Mulan in

The Woman Warrior

Abstract: In The Woman Warrior, Kingston reshapes Fa Mulan from a traditional Chinese daughter to a new American woman warrior. The reshaped Mulan is criticized by Frank Chin, who says the rewritten story distorts Chinese classics, depreciates Chinese males and loses Chinese ethnicity. But the author thinks it is the reshaped story that propagates Kingston's feminism and facilitates the communication between Chinese and American culture. And it is the differences in gender and culture identity that cause the debates between Kingston and Frank Chin. However, there are indeed contradictions in the reshaped tale, which shows Kingston's boundedness as a female writer.

Keywords: The Woman Warrior, Chinese culture, American culture

Main Body:

The folk-song-styled poem Mulan Ballad in Northern Dynasty tells a story of Mulan who disguises herself as a male soldier to take her father's place in the conscription army to resist enemies and protect her country. In The Woman Warrior, Kingston mixes the traditional ballad of Mulan with her own experiences in America and endows Mulan new individualistic and feminist characteristics---revolting gender discriminations in Chinese and American culture and asking equality and respect for Chinese Americans.

However, the reshaping of Mulan legend triggers a drastic controversy. Male Chinese American writer Frank Chin gave the most furious criticisms, that censure that The Woman Warrior distorts Chinese classics, depreciates Chinese males and loses Chinese ethnicity (Zhang 2010, 51). This debate provoked by different supporters of Frank Chin and Kingston is so furious that it is called "a war between Kuan Kung and Mulan" (Liu 2008, 75).

Basing on those arguments between Frank and Kingston, many people show their opinions: some say Kingston tries to shape the "other" image of China and to cater Americans' curiosity. But most eulogize Kingston's way of rewriting Chinese legend, believing that The Woman Warrior brings Chinese American women rights to speak for themselves, dispels the duality of gender and race, enriches the legend of Mulan and promotes the harmonious blending of Chinese and American culture. This paper thinks that Frank Chin's criticisms are one-sided; the reshaping enriches Chinese classics, propagates feminism and also cares for the destiny of Chinese Americans. And the controversy is mainly caused by Kingston and Frank's differences in gender and cultural identity. But there are, indeed, contradictions in the reshaped story, which shows the boundedness of Kingston as a female writer.

"When we Chinese girls listened to the adults talk-story, we learned that we failed