The story provides limited information about the aunt, and the perspective about the woman is solely delivered from the narrator’s mother’s perspective. In addition, it was told to discourage certain behaviors regarding societal expectations of womanhood. Therefore, based on Kingston’s mother’s told, it is revealed that the family does not acknowledge the aunt’s existence, and she was unfaithful to her husband, which led to the birth of an illegitimate child (Kingston, 1976). However, since the story lacks a substantial amount of important information, Kingston comes up with various scenarios to fill these story holes.
The main reason why Kingston’s speculations about her aunt’s life are important is that she begins to realize how society forces women to act in a certain way. If the imposed framework is not followed, society can retaliate and punish in several ways to the extent that a mother is willing to commit suicide with her newborn child. Although the story was initially told to teach Kingston a lesson about infidelity and sexual restrictions in women’s lives, the retelling process allows the narrator to investigate the underlying reasons for such norms. She realizes how society controls one’s private and intimate life by intervening and dictating what ought and ought not to be done. The context of story took place in China when society was strictly patriarchal, and women were neither valued nor respected. The author states: “the Chinese are always very frightened of the drowned one, whose weeping ghost, wet hair hanging and skin bloated, waits silently by the water to pull down a substitute” (Kingston, 1976, p. 5). Therefore, such a restrictive society is unstable, where its imposed collective norms and rules make it unhappy and afraid.
Reference
Kingston, H. (1976). The woman warrior. Knopf.