Maxine Kingston's The Woman Warrior wrestles with the importance of language for Chinese-American women, using Kingston's own life experiences as a foundation of the novel. In the book's final chapter, "A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe," she details her developing relationship with silence and language. Kingston expresses his frustration and distrust of Chinese tradition, to the extent that its words and silence escape him. She maintains that she must find her own voice, as a Chinese-American woman, in order to bridge the gap between generations and communities and that this voice must be used to empower others, not to destroy them. It is through the arts that this voice takes shape, whether through song or literature, as in the case of the novel. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Throughout the chapter, it is clear that Kingston's struggle to find his own voice is intertwined with his struggle to make sense of the Chinese vocal tradition. Is silence or noise the epitome of being Chinese, especially for a Chinese woman? As a young child, she primarily identified with silence and initially saw silence as an integral part of being a Chinese girl – "Other Chinese girls didn't talk either, so I knew that silence had to to do with being a Chinese girl” (166). Silence is something she originally takes comfort in. Kingston states that she enjoyed the silence and that for her it was a natural state in that "it did not occur to her that she was supposed to speak" (166). For his silence was not a lack of things to say but a “stage curtain, and it was the moment before the curtain rose or rose” (165). His silence, this stage curtain “so dark and full of possibilities” (165), only hid in his mind the “mighty operas” on stage. Kingston also takes up the theme of the silence, or at least the absence of communication, of Chinese adults, particularly in the communication of transmitted traditions. In one section, she talks about the ambiguity of Chinese holidays and how “even good things are indescribable” (185). No one tells him when the holidays are and “the adults get angry, evasive and shut you up if you ask” (185). She rightly asks “how can the Chinese maintain traditions?” » (185), emphasizing that one of the disadvantages of the silence in which she grew up is that it stifles continuity between generations. Lack of communication is largely responsible for the disconnect between Chinese and Chinese Americans, which Kingston says leaves the younger generation with a lot of uncertainty when it comes to life's challenges. “If we had to rely on what we were told, we would have no religion, no babies, no menstruation (sex, of course, indescribable), no death” (185). His statement may allude to the biblical Garden of Eden, where it was only when God spoke to Adam and Eve from the Tree of Knowledge that they stumbled through the ups and downs of mortality. This interprets silence as an almost infantile state, in which one protects oneself from both the bad and the good things in life. Here we see Kingston dismissive of the gaps in knowledge that this state leaves. So what about volume and sound? Kingston provides evidence that this is perhaps the volume that embodies the Chinese woman. The silence among Chinese girls in American schools evaporatesquickly once at Chinese school; “The girls were not silent. They screamed and screamed during recess, when there were no rules; they fought with fists” (167). Here, she seems to assert that it is the American school environment that induces calm in her and in the other girls; once placed in a Chinese environment, they adapt the Chinese form of expression. His father also comments on this later in the chapter: "Why can I hear Chinese from several blocks away?" Do I understand the language? Or are they talking loudly? (171) Kingston goes on to describe the irreverence of a Chinese audience during a piano recital, because "the Chinese can't hear the Americans at all" (172). And then she lays it out quite clearly by saying, “The voices of normal Chinese women are loud and authoritative” (172). Loud and authoritarian, noisy and irreverent, this is what is presented in Kingston as the manifestation of Chinese. However, the strong voice of the Chinese does not speak to him. Her own judgment is reflected when she says, “You can see the disgust on American faces…it’s not just the noise. That’s how Chinese sounds, chingchong ugly…not beautiful” (171). She is bothered by the noisy Chinese tradition of banging pot lids during the eclipse and distrusts the Chinese voice because "they want to capture your voice for their own use" (169). For Kingston, this distrust of the Chinese voice plays a big role in the poor communication between Chinese and Chinese Americans. Throughout the novel and especially in this chapter, Kingston struggles to understand which stories she hears from her mother are true and which are jokes. Talking about her mother's stories, she shouts: “They bothered me. You lie with stories…I can’t tell the difference” (202). This outburst comes from years of pent-up angst over Kingston's fears of being sold into marriage and all the many derogatory comments made about women, particularly her and her Chinese-American sisters. His mother, disputing Kingston's accusations, replied: "You can't even tell a joke from real life" and "That's what the Chinese say." We like to say the opposite” (202-3). There is clearly a gap in understanding between Kingston and his mother. This gap is symbolized by the ordeal where his mother cut Kingston's brakes, an act that evokes both pride and terror in his heart. His mother claims she "cut it so you wouldn't gawk." Your tongue would be able to move in any language” (164). Kingston is suspicious of his mother's reasoning and blames her for giving him "a terrible time speaking", the cut "impairing my speech" (165). So, was her mother trying to silence her or free her tongue? Kingston points out that "the Chinese say that a ready-made tongue is evil," but his mother retorts that "'things are different in this ghost country'" (164). This language paradox symbolizes the ambiguities and problems in communication between Chinese and Chinese Americans and also highlights the importance of place for communication guidelines. In order for her to bridge the gap between hers and her parents', she must find her own voice; Kingston makes it clear what's at stake if she doesn't succeed. On page 186 she explains: “I thought that speaking and not speaking was the difference between sanity and madness. The crazy ones were those who couldn't explain themselves. She goes on to talk about Crazy Mary and Pee-A-Nah, two women who grew up to adulthood, unable to communicate with the.