選擇作品：The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts?by Maxine Hong Kingston

????“A remarkable book...As an account of growing up female and Chinese-American in California...As a dream—of the ‘female avenger’—it is dizzying, elemental, a poem turned into a sword.”—The New York Times

????The Woman Warrior was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for the best work of nonfiction in 1976, a milestone of Chinese American literature and a masterpiece of feminism.

?????這本書是女性華裔美國人寫給美國人看的一部中國神話。作者曾在一次采訪中坦承：“有中國血統卻想成為美國人；身為女性卻想追求平等?！睂嶋H上，她遭遇的是雙重邊緣化：身為華人，她在主流社會得不到認同；作為女孩，在華人團體中也得不到尊重。本書分為五個章節(jié)，始于《無名女子》，終于《野蠻之聲》，歷經《白虎》《薩滿》和《西宮》。

?

內容干貨

1.?作者簡介，本文概要

????作者簡介: Maxine Hong Kingston (born October 27, 1940) is a Chinese American writer. She is the first of six children born to a laundry house owner in Stockton, California. She is currently a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley where she graduated with a BA in English in 1962. Her works often reflect on her cultural heritage and blend fiction with non-fiction.

????Notable Works:?“The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts?(1976)”?“China Men?(1980)”?“Hawai’i One Summer?(1987)”?“Through the Black Curtain (1987)”?“Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book?(1989)”?“To Be the Poet?(2002)”?“The Fifth Book of Peace?(2003)”

????作品梗概：The autobiography The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts mainly shows the life experience of the author Maxine Hong Kingston as a typical Chinese American woman as well as the life of women around her. This book contains five chapters with each consisting of a story about a woman: No Name Woman, White Tigers, Shaman, At the Western Palace, A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe.

?

2.?單詞詞組，地道表達

????同學們可以猜猜ABC和Chinese-American是什么意思呀？都是對于華裔美國人的稱呼哦，全稱是American-born Chinese和Chinese-American，因為身份的復雜性所以這一部分朋友對于自己的所屬時常會有一些困擾，我在美國的時候遇到了這些家庭的classmates他們大部分認為自己屬于group of Americans但是也有些認為自己屬于both (Chinese and Americans)，就像谷愛凌也是這其中的一份子。

????Sometimes在這樣的家庭氛圍里，身為第一代移民的孩子都會live with one family, with their mother who marked their growing with stories, varieties of stories, plenty of myths. 有時候也會想象自己就像一直無憂無慮的小鳥，clouds make pointed angel wings that stream past the sunset，但是在看過they shred into clouds at last，我們的反應會是My brain has momentarily lost its depth perception嗎？那時候我們也許才意識到I was that eager to find an unusual bird.

?

3.?散文佳句，沉浸賞析

????如果你是一個華裔美國人，從小出生在美國，但是家庭組成都是中國人，那么你認為自己究竟從屬于哪兒呢？

????Chinese-Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty,?insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is China? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?

????母親的教導往往是很關鍵的，那么在這樣的家庭母親的教育又是怎么樣的呢？在美國的成長與在中國是能區(qū)分開來的嗎?究竟什么是中國傳統，什么是中國神話和電影呢?——《第一章（No Name Woman（無名婦人））》

????作為神話或史詩，這本小說面臨當代文學在類似體裁中共有的問題，即如何在混亂時代里塑造出一位英雄（或女英雄）的主人公。The Woman Warrior中的花木蘭和蔡琰引導著“我”，使“我”朝著俄勒岡的伐木工人設定自己的生活角色。所以Maxine很快就發(fā)現自己成為巾幗英雄（heroines or swordsman）的反面，她講述的就是關于自己的潰敗的故事：

????I’ve looked for the bird. I’ve seen clouds make pointed angel wings that stream past the sunset, but they shred into clouds. Once at a beach after a long hike I saw a seagull, tiny as an insect. But when I jumped up to tell what miracle I saw, before I could get the words out I understood that the bird was insect-size because it was far away. My brain has momentarily lost its depth perception. I was that eager to find an unusual bird.

????并且在這樣的無根之地，美國，“我”感覺自己又被美國的鬼魂所困擾住了？那究竟是什么呢？身為一名ABC亦或是Chinese-American，對于自我身份的認同總是一個很復雜糾結迷茫漫長的過程，我們究竟是誰呢？屬于哪里呢？我是不是也是ghost一份子呢？

????We belong to the planet now, Mama. Does it make sense to you that if we’re no longer attached to one piece of land, we belong to the planet? Wherever we happen to be standing, why, that spot belongs to us as much as any other spot. “Can we spend the fare money of furniture and cars? Will American flowers smell good now?”?Stranded in a land of ghosts, or am I another ghost myself?

?

4.?主旨哲思，流連賞玩

????Ghost（鬼魂、幽靈）

????中國文化中鬼的形象是隨著環(huán)境的變化而變化的。鬼魂/幽靈可以是仍然在我們世界里虛無縹緲的存在，也可以是記憶，甚至可以是真實的人。當西方列強于1860年入侵中國時，他們在中國掌權了近一百年。當時，中國人用“鬼”來貶稱入侵者；他們稱歐洲侵略者為“西方洋鬼”，稱日本侵略者為“東方洋鬼”，這就是真實的人被稱為鬼魂的原因。Maxine用稱那些來到她家門口的美國人為鬼魂，盡管他們是真實的、可觸摸的存在，而不是褪色的記憶或虛無縹緲的實體。

????Silence（沉默）

????書中涵蓋了各種各樣的沉默：姑姑的沉默、美國子女的沉默、蔡琰的沉默，被割掉舌頭的沉默，the narrator認為：“I thought talking and not talking made the difference between sanity and insanity.”?這也是作者寫這本書的理由，“If we had to depend on being told, we’d have no religion, no babies, no menstruation?(sex, of course, unspeakable), no death.”

????Feminism（女權、女性意識的覺醒、男女平等）

????媽媽的姊妹Brave Orchid阿姨是一個在那個年代較為徹底明顯的女權主義者了，“I refused to cook. when I had to wash dishes, I would crack one or two.”&“even now, unless I’m happy, I burn the food when I cook. I do not feed people. I let the dirty dishes rot. I eat at other people’s tables but won’t invite them to mine, where the dishes are rotting.”?同時作者也描繪了一些裹小腳的、像古董一樣可笑的中國婦女：她們失去了仆人就變得像旱地上的鴨子一樣，半里路也走不了，沒有了丈夫就只會哭泣，就像Moon Orchid阿姨。但是作者Maxine在Brave Orchid的路上走得更遠，她幻想成為“a lumberjack in Oregon”（俄勒岡的伐木工），像花木蘭和蔡琰那樣成為一名男性化亦或是說英雄化了的女性，獨立自主又充滿了力量感。

????The Woman Warrior一書中的敘述者女孩子生于美國，屬于二代移民，她也掙扎在中美兩種文化之間。不過更多的，她是受中國傳統文化的影響，我們的鬼神觀念，我們的佛道儒，與國外的宗教一樣，都是我們生活的一部分。就像西游記的西天取經故事，紅樓夢的一僧一道（絳珠草與神瑛侍者的傳奇），三國演義諸葛借東風等均具奇幻色彩。移民身份也讓她迷茫不知道自己究竟屬于什么群體，應該如何behave，所以文化意識的交叉融合和教育都是非常重要及必要的。