Silence In Maxine Hong Kingston's No Name Woman

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Silence is a powerful tool used in many pieces or writing. When used properly, silence can have a stronger impact on readers than words. Furthermore, silence can be used literally, or within the characters in the story. This is what Maxine Hong Kingston does in “No Name Woman;” a chapter telling the story of the narrator’s deceased aunt though the words of her mother. After her husband left China, the aunt got pregnant out of wedlock. Since this is an act considered extremely taboo in this society, villagers stay silent about her story. Therefore, in this chapter, silence is used to control women. Firstly, the mother prohibits her daughter from talking about her aunt’s story or asking any questions relating to her, therefore the silence enforced on the daughter is controlling her. This is demonstrated in the first line of the chapter: “’You must not tell anyone,’ my mother said” (Hong Kingston, 453). This line is an order given to the narrator; this shows how important it is to keep her aunt’s story a secret to others. By enforcing this order on the narrator, silence controls her into condoning to Chinese tradition: not talking about taboo subjects. The second instance where the mother prohibits her daughter from mentioning her aunt is when she finishes telling the aunt’s story, and she tells her daughter that …show more content…
In “No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston, silence controls the two most important characters in the chapter. It controls the narrator; her mother constantly orders her to never mention her aunt. Silence also controls the aunt in two ways: when she is alive, the villagers do not care to ask her anything about her pregnancy, instead they punish her, and after she commits suicide, silence controls her through her family denying the fact that she ever existed. When used properly, silence is a powerful tool; it has the power to completely erase the existence of an
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