Fundamental to The Woman Warrior is the theme of finding one's own, personal voice. Interspersed throughout the memoir's five chapters are numerous references to this physical and emotional struggle. For the many women who are voiceless, Kingston supplies the language these silent women need if they are to discover viable, individualized identities.
Beginning with the first chapter, "No Name Woman," Kingston breaks the family-imposed silence that surrounds the secret of an aunt, whom she names No Name Woman, who became pregnant by someone other than her husband. No Name Woman refuses to name the father of her child, protecting him with her silence, which simultaneously victimizes her: A nameless woman suggests someone with neither a story nor a voice. However, by hypothesizing how her aunt became pregnant, and by writing her aunt's story, Kingston in effect gives this silenced woman a voice. For Kingston, "the [aunt's] real punishment was not the raid swiftly inflicted by the villagers, but the family's deliberately forgetting her. . . . My aunt haunts me — her ghost drawn to me because now, after fifty years of neglect, I alone devote pages of paper to her." Although Kingston never learns what her aunt's real name was, the symbolic act of naming the woman No Name Woman honors this forgotten ancestor's memory.
If women do not have voices in traditional Chinese culture, then the talk-stories and legends that mothers pass on to daughters may indeed be considered subversive tales and instructions. One such talk-story, the legend of the Chinese woman warrior Fa Mu Lan, is a constant reminder to young Kingston that women can transcend socially imposed limitations. "White Tigers" is, in part, the story of Kingston's childhood fantasy of transcending a life of insignificance. As a child, Kingston imagines herself to be like Fa Mu Lan, who saves not only her family but her community. Brave Orchid's tale of this woman warrior exemplifies how talk-stories and legends create alternative, subversive voices for women who otherwise would remain silent their entire lives, dominated by a patriarchal world.
