Misconstrued Narratives and the Search for A Role Model in No Name Woman Nancy Canevari College

Maxine Hong Kingston’s No Name Woman explores the life of Kingston’s aunt, who had a child out of wedlock in rural China. As she doesn’t know the exact circumstances of her aunt’s story, she’s forced to imagine different versions of her aunt’s narrative. Her ultimate goal is construct a vision of her aunt that she personally identifies with, but her interpretations also present the issues that arise from stories created without possession of all the facts. Kingston tries out multiple interpretations to find one that allows her to see her aunt as a figure in whom she can relate, but in doing so her interpretations, and the lack of concrete fact and cultural context she has access to, can allow the aunt’s story to be misconstrued.

The varied interpretations of the aunt’s story stem from Kingston’s desire to see her aunt as someone with whom she can personally relate. Kingston is the product of two cultures, who feels neither wholly Chinese nor wholly American: she explains how her mother’s behavior is that of a Chinese woman, complete with “screams in public libraries or over telephones” (13), but she has tried to make herself American in spite of the Chinese environment in which she’s been raised, by “walking erect… and speaking...