The Woman Warrior and The Female Individual and the Empire

In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston describes her parent's memories from when they lived in China. From her paren't's description, her community has a primitive idea of the way women are treated. In the community she describes, women were treated as a useless, afterthought and can have a little impact on society. Although, in many more modern thinking societies, women have been able to have a huge impact on development and there are many important women figures throughout history. After experiencing many frustrations with the perception of how women are treated in China, Kingston decided to rewrite the tale of Mulan and give it a more feministic empowerment compared to the previous different versions of Mulan. We all know "Mulan" has become a successful Disney movie adaptation. In her rewrite of Mulan, she gives Mulan the title of leader of her whole army. What surprised me while reading this, was that Mulan gave up her power to become a housewife because her parents in law asked her to. This pretty much was the complete opposite idea I thought Kingston was trying to express. Instead, of giving a fitting empowering ending that marks the importance and strength of women  in society, the ending that was given was very boring and very narrow minded.