THE WOMAN WARRİOR: MİTLER VE KÜLTÜREL BAĞNAZLIK
KINGSTON’S “THE WOMAN WARRIOR”: MYTHS AND CULTURAL BIGOTRY

Author : Mehmet Recep TAŞ -& Fethi DEMİR
Number of pages : 21-30

Abstract

Myths, which narrate a common belief or explain some natural phenomena refering to supernatural beings or imaginary people, are known to be the traditional stories that have been transmitted from the ancient times to the present. These traditional stories are considered as history of societies and they serve to explain the world view of these societies. Though they are supernatural, illogical, incoherent and unreasonable, yet a considerable number of peoples, especially peoples from the eastern part of the world, still shape their worldviews in line with them. Hence, it is likely to suggest that this reliance on myths is the most important factor among the other parameters which pave the way to cultural bigotry and generate culture clashes. From this point of view, written by Maxine Hong Kingston, a renowned Chinese-American writer who was born in America, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts is likely to be considered as an autobiographical novel which depicts its author’s struggles with such myths embeded in her Chineese heritage. In this respect, taking into consideration Kingston’s The Woman Warrior which depicts its author’s own life, this article aims to put forward how myths are likely to drive a society into cultural bigotry which leads the members of that society to have to struggle with various senses of alienation each of which eventually deracinates the self from its origin when faced with different cultures.

Keywords

Kingston, Myths, Culture Clash, Cultural Bigotry, Traditional Story.

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