more fragments hastily recorded herein because i cannot be counted on to remember my own middle name!!!
ok. i'd like to compare the dream sequence in the beginning of woman warrior with the princess valhalla video. i'll also need to include some of the backstory (for valhalla) in order to make the connection.
some thoughts on the two compared/contrasted:
*both seek to undermine feminine inferiority by positioning the woman as a warrior. the princess valhalla video is clearly ironic. can the dream sequence in woman warrior also be read as ironic?
*princess valhalla is the first woman in her kingdom to reach sexual maturity. this is both a position of power and a cause of danger. she seeks to make herself "unnattractive to the prince" and evade his sexual advances. compare this with kingston's response to sexual maturity in the dream sequence. she embraces her mate (whom she has foreseen) but in many ways rejects motherhood.
*princess valhalla, in the video, is an incompetent warrior. if she has power--if, in fact "might wins" then her power lies somewhere beyond strength as a warrior. perhaps it is the kind of power that camille paglia reads into a woman's sexuality. she certainly commands the gaze... kingston's woman warrior, on the other hand, is a virtually perfect (for lack of a better word) mimesis of the male version of a warrior. if her version of power is indeed ironic, then, the irony must lie in somehow undermining the male version of strength, virility, honor, and so on as represented in the icon of warrior.
*princess valhalla comes from a society that values her for her femininity and fecundity. in the chinese culture, these are devalued. yet both women seek to escape being pigeonholed into a role inscribed by gender. in what ways are their responses to gender roles similar/different?
other random insights:
*the dream sequence, if it were told to another, is a sort of "talk-story". in fact, it is being told to us though through the written medium. (discuss.)
*kingston ascribes a tremendous power to language, voice, and naming. talk-story is only one--significant, but singular--aspect of the power of words. throughout the memoirs, this remains a powerful and vividly present trope. (discuss.)
*asian languages provide a rich example of the conflation of visual with verbal rhetoric. on several occassions, kingston comments on the difference between the western "meaning" of a given word when contrasted with the visual connotations implicit in the ideographs. (look up references. discuss. essays from hill's defining visual rhetoric are relevant.)
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