Analysis Of No Name Woman By Maxine Hong Kingston
When to speak and when to refrain from speaking, when to cast away stones and when to gather stones together. These are not black and white questions; they are not issues of youth, age, or gender. These are human questions and when we insist on seeing them only through singular lens, we see them through a glass, darkly.
In No Name Woman, Maxine Hong Kingston tells the story of her father’s deceased sister, who killed herself and her baby by jumping into the family well in China. The shame brought by her aunt’s adultery caused embarrassment and silence to her family. Unlike her family, Kingston refused to stay quiet about the story because she was raised in America and had different values compared to her family. Like many immigrants, Kingston struggled to develop her own identity in relation to her Chinese and American cultures. She was pressured to remain silent because of her family traditions and beliefs, but her American values taught her to stand up and speak for herself. After all, silence is a big enemy of morality and is what made possible for evil to triumph in history, right? Not always. Silence remains a vital part of healthy living and silence by choice can be great or detrimental. Silence gives us time to think. Thinking shapes or reshapes feelings. Feelings feed actions. Quiet enables us to gain or regain control of ideas, concepts, changes, viewpoints or opinions that should or should not reside in our minds. The crowded mind can become disorderly. Quiet can restore the order. Silence lets us think carefully through both sides of a lens tied to a tough problem or difficult decision: the potential upside and risky downside, the pluses and minuses, the pros and cons, or the risks and rewards. Noise is distracting and lures us to rush. Quiet time lets us carefully study both sides of an important issue and frees us to sell it to ourselves from two, disparate points of view. After both sides are studied without bias, the best option usually prevails. Silence by design also enables us to relax, read, and concentrate—not to skim (which is increasing) but to study, retain, and apply new knowledge (which is decreasing). Silence enables us to accumulate wisdom; distractions are wisdom’s barrier. Too many worry too much these days about where to find something rather than striving to accumulate knowledge that leads to better decision-making, especially under pressure.
Bad silence, however, can have a negative impact. It can and will reinforce self-doubt. Brooding over uncontrollable things tempts us into the dark and endless tunnel of the “what ifs?” The mind processes uncontrollable worries to the worst possible extreme, which almost never happens. This is negative thinking at its worst. Guard against it.
Silence by compulsion and fear also perpetuates negativity. Kingston expressed her initial fear after listening to the story of her no-name aunt. She feared silence, as silence could make it appear someone or, in this case, her aunt had never existed. Because being forgotten by one’s own family and from history means no one will ever remember who he or she was. Kingston’s mother had warned her, “Don’t let your father know that I told. He denies her… Don’t humiliate us. You wouldn’t like to be forgotten as if you were never born.” Therefore, the story was a warning. If Kingston were to follow in the same path as her aunt, she will bring shame and humiliation to her family. She would be like her aunt, silenced and forgotten. And so, she chose to self-censor herself for fear of repercussions and judgment.
Other times, silence by choice may be seen as mature and polite. Given different cultural background, some Asian immigrants living in the United States Silence is golden, but one must also learn to speak up in defense of things that are bad, evil, unjust, unfair, untrue, unethical, inequitable, and wrong. To keep silent in the face of evil is to be party to said evil. We must learn to use our voices wisely.
Much silences need to be broken. Not just feminism, but also bullying, sexual harassment, and drug use are issues we should speak up for. People should quit being silent and stand up for others and themselves. If we stand silently by while others are subject to injustice, we are guilty. When we stay silent, people don’t realize that we are here, and we can never say what we wish to say. If we keep what others had said about ourselves and don’t say anything back, we will never get the chance to say it. Shutting in by choice can be the longest way to a remedy. Or, if we keep our problems locked up, it’ll eventually burst out and drag everyone down with us. Speech and silence are complex. There is no way to separate silence from speech or to determine which one is preferable. Silence can be powerful to one person and simultaneously painful to another. It depends entirely on a person’s perspective.
In the end, Kingston solved the struggle by becoming a writer and telling stories of the oppression against women in China, including the one about her no-name aunt. For Kingston, the value of free speech is more important than silence. By choosing to write and share the story of the No Name Woman, she is ultimately showing her strength and individuality. We often hear that we never learn when we speak, but only when we listen. Dial into the silence of your life and become acutely aware of whether that silence is positive or negative. If life’s too hectic and you realize you don’t have enough thinking time in it, make room. A good life leverages smart silence. Harvest the good, weed out the bad–it will help you stay happy and balanced.
