Abstract
The study analyses how woman muteness is revealed as self-portrait of the Asian-woman in the literary memoirs of Maxine Hong Kingston's "The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of Girlhood among ghosts," and Shirley Geok-lin Lim's "Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian- American Memoir of Homelands." The meta-textualities of Woman-roles and Woman-lingo of Muteness are synthesized as Self-Portrait of the Asian Woman. Asian-woman muteness presents her role as daughter and daughter-in-law, wife, female peranakan sibling, mother and aunt in her Chinese family-where she experiences inequalities in Asian patriarchal hegemony. These woman-roles depict the sad plight of the Asian-woman as: unnamed, ostracised, abandoned, and institutionalised; bullied yet feared. Woman-lingo of muteness includes the peranakan: manek-manek (a gossipy female whose chatter is heared and given attention only within the women circle). Lingo of muteness manifests the Asian-woman sense of alienation, abandonment, loss, and loneliness which all display the low regard and position of the woman in Asian society. Muteness in her roles and lingo are synthesised into a Self-Portrait of the Asian-Woman proves the Muted Group theory (Ardennes and Ardennes, 1969 and 1974, Kramarae, 1981- all in Griffin, 2006) in the Human Communication Model.
Author Information
Rosalina Rara Sarabosing, Holy Name University, The Philippines
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