The Nature of Ghosts in The Woman Warrior Essay -- Maxine Hong Kingsto

The Nature of Ghosts in The Woman Warrior "Ghost." What images does this word conjure up in the average American mind? Perhaps you think of little kids draped in white sheets begging for candy on Halloween. Perhaps you imagine transparent versions of dead people wandering the earth for eternity. Perhaps you are reminded of a person who just saw something especially scary; they are "pale as a ghost". So the word "ghost" - a word with many meanings - calls forth these images. What do they have in common? There's the idea of paleness - when was the last time you ever saw a black ghost? Silence - ghosts don't say much, except maybe they go "Boo!" once in a while. And, just maybe, there's a hint of unfamiliarity in the idea - it's always a stranger's soul wandering the earth, not someone you know, and somehow - maybe with a white sheet - the ghost's identity is hidden from the world. Perhaps these have something in common with the "Chinese" idea of the ghost as it is played out in Kingston's The Woman Warrior. I have placed "Chinese" in quotes to acknowled...