Task 4

"I inspired my army, and I fed them. At night I sang to them glorious songs that came out of the sky and into my head. When I opened my mouth, the songs poured out and were loud enough for the whole encampment to hear: my army stretched out for a mile." (Kingston 37)

Kingston, Maxine Hong. "White Tigers." "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts." New York: Knopf, 1976. 37. Print. At this point, the narrator, having completed her warrior training, has returned home, assembled an army, and is now camped out with them. I'm interested in this passage because it describes clearly the relationship between the narrator and her all-male army, an interaction that is missing in the original Ballad of Fa Mu Lan. I'm curious to investigate why Maxine Hong Kingston chooses to go into detail about this relationship.

What stands out to me about the content is, firstly, how the narrator seems to have a power over her army that goes beyond just being their leader. She gives them emotional support as well as physical. She's not only their leader, she's also their friend. Also, it stands out to me that her main way to inspire them is by singing. This seems significant. In addition, it's surprising that the songs just come from the sky. She doesn't need to put any effort into composing and/or performing these songs - it just happens. Almost as if she has no control over it. And she's able to project so well! Also - her army stretches out for a whole mile, according to her! Quite the army to be in charge of.

Style-wise, there's a lot of "I's" floating about: "I inspired my army," "I fed them," "I sang to them," "I  opened my mouth," and so on. And while there's a lot of "I's" to describe the narrator, in a few instances the army is described as "them." So while the narrator is being portrayed as an individual who stands out from the rest, the rest of the army - the men - are all grouped together and generalized. They move as a unit, given no individual characteristics. This makes us focus the majority of our attention on the amazing things the narrator is doing, while ignoring the army. In the second sentence of this paragraph, there is no comma after "At night" as one would expect - instead that whole sentence is one blob, void of punctuation. As a reader, it has the same dreamy, hazy effect that the beginning of the story does when the narrator is being lulled to sleep by the stories of her mother. Due to our status quo way of thinking, there is something distinctly feminine about this. The sentence seems to literally embody the action of the songs flowing from the sky into her. Also, she says "I fed them" right before describing the singing, as though the songs are the nourishment she's providing. And the semicolon before "My army stretched out for a mile" made it feel to me like she was bragging.

All of this adds a sense of supreme power to the character of the narrator. While the army is generalized, she is made more and more the individual. She has control over her army, and even over us. But there's something, like I said before, feminine to the way she controls them that I think is central to why Maxine Hong Kingston added it in. This idea of singing for an audience to soothe and comfort them is something we associate with more femininity than masculinity. While she is the powerful bloodthirsty general of a powerful bloodthirsty army, there is also something motherly about her. We never hear about Mu Lan singing to her army, in fact we never hear about her interacting with her army at all. The way she is portrayed - as a completely masculine woman - it seems unlikely she would sing to her army, lest it ruin the facade of strength and power. For the narrator in "White Tigers," though, it only gives her more power. Ultimately, I think this is another way Maxine Hong Kingston is trying to create a woman who is a powerful, skilled warrior, but not one devoid of feminine qualities. She can be a warrior while having her period, while being a wife and a mother, while singing lullabies to her army. And it doesn't impede upon her power and the respect others have for her - it only amplifies it.