The May Fourth Movement revolutionaries sought to replace China's heavy dependence on traditionalism with Western rationalism, democracy, and individualism. One of the cultural changes demanded by the activists, and one that has great consequences for modern Chinese literature, was the abandonment of classical Chinese, a language written but no longer spoken, in favor of a vernacular modern Chinese. The intellectuals wanted to adopt a written Chinese that was closer to colloquial Chinese, known as baihua. In support of this change, modern Chinese writers began adopting Western literary genres, including the novel, dramatic play, and short story. Writing for and about the general population, they created a new literary tradition using the spoken colloquial language, devoid of the sterile and overly stylized writing of ancient Chinese. Prominent in many of these new works are narratives using a first-person point of view, as well as themes of individualism and psychological self-examination.
This new literary and cultural movement influenced the attitudes of a new generation of Chinese. Because one of the cultural changes that the student demonstrators demanded was the education of women, in The Woman Warrior, Brave Orchid's decision to pursue a medical education must be understood in the context of the May Fourth Movement. Activists for educational change had been promoting universal education in China since the late-nineteenth century, but many women remained uneducated even after 1919. Brave Orchid, who in 1934 graduated from medical college at the age of thirty-seven, is thus somewhat of a late beneficiary of this progressive change. Kingston recognizes the sacrifices that Brave Orchid made in first obtaining a medical education and then abandoning her career to join her husband in America. Simultaneously, however, Kingston is pained and marginalized by the traditional upbringing she experienced. Despite Brave Orchid's progressive education, in many ways Kingston's mother still remained a traditionalist.
