Woman Warrior 3

It is truly very difficult for me to understand Brave Orchid and her cruel actions towards her daughter. Here is a woman who has undergone incredible hardship, left her culture and her country for a completely new one, raised a family, cared for her naïve and eventually ailing sister, and done all of this quite effectively. She is, in so many ways, a hero and someone any young woman should look up to.

Every once in a while, we even get to see the kind, loving side of Brave Orchid. I was particularly struck by how sweetly Brave Orchid cared for Moon Orchid just before she was placed in the mental asylum. She is incredibly patient with Moon Orchid as her sister begins to lose her mind. Kingston writes, “Moon Orchid had misplaced herself, her spirit scattered all over the world. Brave Orchid held her sister’s head as she pulled on her earlobe. She would make it up to her,” (Woman Warrior, 157). She listens to Moon Orchid’s stories of delusions and does her best to bring her back to the world of reality by, “tweak[ing] her sister’s ears for hours, chanting her new address to her, telling her how much she loved her and how much her daughter and nephews and nieces loved her, and her brother in law loved her,” (Woman Warrior, 156). She eventually has to place Moon Orchid in a mental institution because of her children as, “their aunt was saying terrible things when they needed blessing,” (Woman Warrior, 159). But her love for her sister was apparent even in that action, and it was clear that she would do just about anything for her. (It cannot be fun to send your own sister to a creepy insane asylum like this, but Brave Orchid knew what was best for her sister and loved her enough to do so, no matter how painful it was for her. This is another example of that tough love Brave Orchid was so familiar with. image courtesy of:http://theresalduncan.typepad.com/witostaircase/images/insane_asylum_1.jpg). Which is why I am so confused when it comes to the relationship between Brave Orchid and Kingston. Kingston clearly recognizes these moments of kindness, comfort, and love between her mother and her aunt, especially that which is coming from her mother. And yet, Kingston seems to recall mostly the painful incidents – the arguments, the disagreements, the old wounds – between she and her mother. What comes to mind in terms of painful arguments is the part of the novel where Kingston discusses her word vomit (as I like to call it) when she completely unleashes all her feelings and pain from her life onto her mother. Kingston screamed to her mother that she couldn’t tell when her mother was telling the truth and when she was lying, that she was not a good role model, that Kingston herself was not happy at Chinese school where her mother insisted she be. And, instead of responding by taking pause, considering what her daughter was saying, acting how she might if Moon Orchid were telling her something, Brave Orchid responds with, “You’re still stupid. You can’t listen right. Can’t you take a joke? You can’t even tell a joke from real life. You’re not so smart. Can’t even tell real from false,” (Woman Warrior, 202). The conversation continues until Brave Orchid tries to defend her calling her daughter ugly, saying that she would never say such a thing. Kingston’s response: “You say that all the time,” (Woman Warrior, 203).

However, I think that a small bit of redemption is made for Brave Orchid and Kingston’s relationship towards the end of their epic argument. Since Kingston decides to make the argument one filled with feelings and emotions and sentiments she has kept inside of her for her entire life, her mother finally decides to level with her. She finally decides to throw her daughter a bone, to level with her daughter, whatever you want to call it. Following Kingston’s accusation that Brave Orchid has always called her ugly, Brave Orchid says, “That’s what we’re supposed to say. That’s what Chinese say. We like to say the opposite,” (Woman Warrior, 203). Once I read this, I knew I didn’t have to read any further or examine the text any further to know one thing for certain: Brave Orchid loved her daughter very, very much. As much or more as she loved Moon Orchid. She simply was unable to show it due to ancient Chinese ways that she had grown up with.(Tough love, baby. That's what Brave Orchid was all about. image courtesy of:http://tough-love-jeans.co.uk/img/toughlove.png). Brave Orchid had left so much of her culture behind when she left China, she was obviously holding onto what little of her culture she had inside of her. Unfortunately, this resulted in Kinston thinking for for most of her life that she was worthless to her mother. I can only hope that through writing this novel, Kinston was able to heal. Hopefully, she was able to take every insult ever hurled at her by her mother, think of the opposite, and know that her mother really did love her. I hope that Kingston was able to forgive her. For, just as Brave Orchid said to her sister, so I believe she felt about her daughter, “I won’t let anything happen to you. Don’t be afraid,” (Woman Warrior, 156).