Maxine Hong Kingston’s story “White Tigers” is a fan
fiction of the famous tale that originated from “The Ballad of Fa Mu Lan,” of a
girl taking her father’s place in war. In Hong Kingston’s version she places
herself in the story and changes certain things about it to make it suit her –
she amplifies some elements, downplays others, and even adds some of her own. Since
she is writing a fan fiction about such a legendary heroine, one would think
that in writing “White Tigers,” the changes that Hong Kingston makes are
intended to improve the character, to make her even more heroic than the original
Fa Mu Lan. So it follows that a reader should feel a great deal of respect and
awe for such a great hero.
And
yet while reading “White Tigers” I felt no respect for this character. In fact
I found myself looking down on her. She did not seem a hero to me – she seemed
like a puppet who did nothing valuable or constructive on her own. Therefore it
could be possible that girls going to war to save their families just do not
impress me. However, another way to consider this problem is by examining “The
Ballad of Fa Mu Lan” itself and seeing how the experience compares. In fact,
while reading the original “Ballad of Fa Mu Lan” my feelings towards the
heroine were quite different. I did not look down on Fa Mu Lan – instead I
admired her. There was something so majestic, yet so humble, about her I found
myself really aspiring to. Clearly other people have felt that same admiration,
considering that her story has been retold and remade repeatedly, such as in
the Disney movie. Yet despite this, “White Tigers” was empty of that quality,
of that great heroism, for me. So if I would expect that Hong Kingston in her
fan fiction would try to make the character of Fa Mu Lan even more heroic, and
yet while I was reading “White Tigers” the narrator did not seem like a hero to
me at all, what about Hong Kingston’s writing style made me react this way?
Perhaps the
answer is that Maxine Hong Kingston’s style moves that she uses to fill in the
gaps in “The Ballad of Fa Mu Lan” are what make her heroine seem less heroic
than Fa Mu Lan. Some of these moves include the lack of choices given to the
narrator and her submissive attitude towards others making choices for her, how
the narrator is treated as an object and a tool by other characters, and how
her wartime success is only because she’s had help. Actually, the very places
in “The Ballad of Fa Mu Lan” where Fa Mu Lan seemed the most heroic to me happen
to be the same as the places in “White Tigers” where the narrator seemed the
least heroic. If you compare the similar passages of the two pieces, you’ll
realize that “White Tigers” is ultimately a broken telephone retelling of “The
Ballad of Fa Mu Lan” where new ideas that were not present in the original are
muddled in so that the outcome leaves you feeling entirely different. It is not
as though Hong Kingston leaves out anything crucial from “The Ballad of Fa Mu
Lan” – she instead adds in new parts in a fashion that alters the experience
irreversibly.
One
of the reasons why the narrator seems like less of a hero is that she is given
no choices – others make choices for her. Although she does volunteer to go to
war in her father’s place (Hong Kingston, 34), it is not as much a choice as an
obligation; she has been prepped for this her whole life, as exemplified when
the narrator’s father says “You knew from her birth she would be taken (Hong
Kingston, 22). It is her birthright so really her volunteering for her father
is merely superficial. However, in “The Ballad of Fa Mu Lan, she volunteers to
go even though no one expects her to: “I want to buy a saddle and a horse, and
serve in the army in Father’s place” (Tzu-Yeh, 1). Notice, she says that she wants to do this. This is not an
obligation, it is her firmly declaring that she wants to go to war. At this
same moment in “White Tigers,” however, the narrator only says “I will take
your place” (Hong Kingston, 34). It is not at all something she wants to do. Fa
Mu Lan willingly putting herself in danger to save her family – not because she
has to but because she wants to – is a far more heroic beau gest than what the
narrator of “White Tigers” pulled off. Heroes are chivalrous and brave like Fa Mu
Lan, not excessively obedient and submissive like the narrator of “White
Tigers.”
Another
way that others make choices for her is when her parents marry her off without
her consent (Hong Kingston, 31). But rather than retaliating, which she
hypothetically could with her amount of training, she is submissive and goes
along with being forcibly married. While in “The Ballad of Fa Mu Lan” no one
directly mentions marrying her off, in the first stanza it is hinted at in
“They ask Daughter who’s in her heart, they ask Daugher who’s on her mind”
(Tzu-Yeh, 1). This passage depicts that her family is looking for a man that
she is interested in, possibly so that they can marry her off. And yet instead
of playing along, Fa Mu Lan immediately shuts them down when she says “No one
is on Daughter’s heart, no one is on Daughter’s mind” (Tzu-Yeh, 1). As exemplified
here, she makes the rules and no one challenges her. Furthermore, it is not
only significant that Fa Mu Lan says what she wants to say and makes her own
choices, it is also crucial that she is given such a choice. They ask her if
she is thinking about a guy – they don’t tell her too. By contrast, the family
of the girl in “White Tigers” never asks how she feels about the guy before
they marry her to him. She is not given a chance to have an opinion, to argue.
Fa Mu Lan is given these choices because there is a central sense of respect
that others have for her, something that others do not feel for the narrator of
“White Tigers.” Respect is an essential thing for heroes to receive. Heroes
work, very hard at times, to earn respect, and are subsequently treated with
it. But the narrator in “White Tigers” is not treated with respect by those
closest to her, and she never tries to earn it.
Along
with her being forced to go to battle, she is also forced to return to being “a
wife and a slave” (Hong Kingston, 20). When she gets home from battle she says
to her parents-in-law “I
will stay with you, doing farmwork and housework, and giving you more sons”
(Hong Kingston, 45). The certainty with which she uses the word “will” has the
dutiful feeling that her going to war does. She has no other options at this
point than to become a housewife, despite her victory in war. It is pretty
insulting that someone who was supposedly such a hero in war should have to
succumb to such a hapless future, yet she does not protest. Fa Mu Lan does
change back into her “old-time clothes” when she gets home, but her fate is
still left ambiguous (Tzu-Yeh 5). She does not have the obligation of returning
to her husband and producing more sons. She does not have to do farmwork and
housework, or if she does have to do any of these things, Tzu-Yeh decided not
to tell us. In the very least it seems like Fa Mu Lan herself will get to
choose where to go from here, but the narrator of “White Tigers” does not get
such a choice. And although everyone else is deciding her fate for her, she
never fights back. A real hero would, because heroes make their own choices and
are masters of their own fates.
In addition to letting others make
choices for her, the narrator also seems to be less of a hero in the way she is
treated like an object/tool by others. An example of this is how no one seems
to care if she lives or dies as long as she serves her purpose, like in the
part “She meant that even if I got killed, the people could use my dead body
for a weapon” (Hong Kingston, 34). No one, even her parents, is worried whether
the narrator lives or dies as long as she serves her purpose. They look at her
as an object, as an asset, not as a human being. But also, they don’t care if
she dies as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them. This is demonstrated where the old woman says “If you go now,
you will be killed, and you’ll have wasted seven and a half years of our time”
(Hong Kingston, 32). She is not concerned about the narrator dying because she
actually cares about her, but because it would inconvenience the old woman. In
“The Ballad of Fa Mu Lan,” however, we don’t see Mu Lan’s family treating her
the same way. Although they don’t directly state it, it is implicit that Mu
Lan’s parents do care whether she lives or dies in that they repeatedly calling
after her once she leaves (Tzu-Yeh, 2-3). There is nothing here about them
using her body as a weapon; there is no one telling her not to waste their
time. In addition to being free to make choices, Fa Mu Lan is also treated like
a human being, not someone else’s plaything.
A different, less extreme form of
objectification is how the narrator of “White Tigers” is married off (Hong Kingston, 31). She is married off as if
she is an object, or a product in a store, not a human being with feelings and
opinions of her own. This idea that she can be sold like this is dependent on a
concept of inferiority – the narrator is treated as less valuable than those
around her, even as less than human. But in “The Ballad of Fa Mu Lan,” she is
looked up to, as depicted in the way her entire family waits in anticipation
for her return, her sister putting on makeup to look her best, her little
brother sacrificing animals to please her (Tzu-Yeh, 5). Her family appreciates
and admires her, whereas the narrator of “White Tigers” is viewed by her family
as a product to be sold. The narrator of “White Tigers” is dehumanized and
treated as a mere object, which makes her less heroic because real heroes
should be looked up to, not looked down upon.
Another
reason that she seems less heroic is that she is completely prepared and
equipped to go to war. Firstly, she has received state of the art training from
two old people her entire childhood. They have transformed her from the clumsy
novice she was at the beginning, “When I stepped carelessly and mussed a line,
my feet kicked up new blends of earth colors, but the old man and old woman
walked so lightly that their feet never stirred the designs by a needle” (Hong
Kingston, 21) into this graceful, agile being, “I could jump twenty feet into
the air from a standstill, leaping like a monkey over the hut” (Hong Kingston,
23). The original Fa Mu Lan, on the other hand, had absolutely no preparation,
and was thrust into battle – and survived – as the clumsy novice the narrator
of “White Tigers” was as a child. Fa Mu Lan, instead, had grown up learning far
more mundane tasks, like weaving (Tzu-Yeh 1). Yet despite this, she went into
battle and survived while the generals around her “[died] in a hundred battles”
(Tzu-Yeh 3). She is your standard storybook hero who comes from humble and
average beginnings and yet manages to accomplish great feats. This makes her
seem far more heroic than the narrator of “White Tigers” – clearly Mu Lan’s
success must’ve came from natural talent and skill buried deep inside her, the
narrator of “White Tigers” survived battle because her preparation had infused
her with these skills.
Not
only was she better prepared, but the narrator of “White Tigers” also had more
resources, like a perfect horse with a perfect saddle (Hong Kingston, 35) and
her own army (Hong Kingston, 36). Fa Mu Lan, meanwhile, does not have her own
army to defend and support her, and must buy a cheap horse and saddle from
market rather than having hers miraculously gifted to her (Tzu-Yeh, 2). Indeed,
it is a recurring theme that the narrator of “White Tigers” is just given
things that Fa Mu Lan actually had to work for. Another example is the magical
weapons that she masters during training and brings with her to war, such as “I
could point at the sky and make a sword appear, a silver bolt in the sunlight,
and control its slashing with my mind” (Hong Kingston, 33). She literally has a
magical indestructible sword, with which she foils giants and other foes. As far
as we know, Fa Mu Lan had to deal with whatever makeshift weapons she could
find, and yet she survived the war. It seems far less of an achievement that
the narrator of “White Tigers” survived the war considering that she had so
much help, whereas Fa Ma Lan seems more heroic for surviving war singlehandedly
with no experience. Heroes are people who are special, who work hard so that
they can do what ordinary people cannot. Yet any person given the resources and
training that the girl from “White Tigers” was given could probably survive the
war. So there really is nothing special, and by extension nothing heroic, about
her.
Going
off of the idea of her not being special, she may seem special while in battle,
but once she returns home she takes up “farmwork and housework” (Hong Kingston,
45), very mundane, average tasks. While at war she did seem special in that she
was the general of the army that defeated many opponents and unseated the
tyrannical emperor to replace him with one of their own, when you think about
it all of her success came from other people. She would not have gone to war if
it hadn’t been for the pressure of her family, and without her training,
equipment, and army, she wouldn’t have lasted the night. When Fa Mu Lan returns
home her future is left undecided, but that seems to indicate she has options –
she could go out and fight in another war, who knows. She takes off her wartime
gown, but she doesn’t incinerate it, so it is still a possibility. But whatever
Fa Mu Lan chooses to do next, she still has her success and unlike the
narrator, it came truly from herself – it’s something she can be proud of. She
is irreversibly a hero, it is now a part of her identity. The fact that the
narrator was able to throw away any heroic parts of her so easily indicates
that she is not really a hero.
Furthermore,
the reason why the narrator in “White Tigers” seemed less heroic than the
original Fa Mu Lan whom Hong Kingston is developing upon is because of the way
Hong Kingston fills in the gaps in the tale. If her intention was to create a
more fully fleshed-out character, Hong Kingston only partially succeeds; we are
given more information about the character as we watch her transition from
childhood to adulthood, and yet this information comes mainly from other
characters – we still get very little about the character herself, what she
likes, what she wants, etc. What we are given only serves to weaken and
dehumanize her. Admittedly, “The Ballad of Fa Mu Lan” is very vague and one
could do a lot with it, so Hong Kingston could’ve easily gone in and made her
version the even more likeable, heroic, admirable figure. But she didn’t – she
creates a character who is a tool in the aspirations of others. As far as why
she does it this way, the clues may lay buried in the Afterword, where Hong
Kingston explains how growing up, girls were given no opportunities to do
something meaningful. They were looked down upon and objectified. Her culture
treats women awfully, and “The Ballad of Fa Mu Lan” is one of the most deep-rooted
parts of her culture. So maybe it is possible that her motive can be summed up
in the phrase near the beginning of her narrative “She said I would grow up a
wife and a slave, but she taught me the song of the warrior woman, Fa Mu Lan”
(Hong Kingston, 20). Maybe Hong Kingston is criticizing the unrealistic story
she has been told, how it makes girls of her backgrounds wish for things they
can never obtain: heroism, glory, pride. She could be theorizing that the only
way Fa Mu Lan could have completed such a feat is if others had gotten her
there – an achingly cynical view. We can never know if this was her reason or
if it was something else, but nevertheless, she reimagines Fa Mu Lan into
someone a lot less heroic.
