New Critic

In English Class we are doing Literature circles and we have to choose a role to play. I chose to be a New Critic and my role is to find passages of importance and significance.

"Even if she had to rage across all China, a swordswoman got even with anybody who hurt her family. Perhaps women were once so dangerous that they had to have their feet bound. It was a woman who invented white crane boxing only two hundred years ago." (pg. 19)

Through this quote I could see the importance of women in the Chinese culture. They invented 'white crane boxing' and some were afraid of the swordswomen because they seeked revenge in honor of their family. Maxine Hong is asking herself why the Chinese women had to bound their feet and came with an idea that they were just to threatening. "Were women in China really that strong?", I asked myself this while reading this passage and according to the author, yes, they were.

" "No, I haven't," I would have said in real life, mad at the Chinese for lying so much. "I'm starved. Do you have any cookies? I like chocolate chip cookies...They gave me an egg, as if it were my birthday, and tea, though they were older than I, but I poured for them." (pg. 21)

Apparently being 'respectful' in China is not saying what you really want, you just say what you think others would want you to say. Both of these quotes pulled from one page in the book gave me an image of respect in China in different issues. The second quote is similar to other cultures where you have to treat elders with utmost respect and show it to them by doing some obvious things, in this case Maxine Hong poured tea for them.

"I hurried along, again collecting wood and edibles. I ate nothing and only drank the snow my fires made run...my eyesight sharp with hunger, I saw deer and used their trails when our ways coincided. Where the deer nibbled, I gathered the fungus, the fungus of immortality."...In the warming water I put roots, nuts, and the fungus of immortality. Oh, green joyous rush inside my mouth, my head, my stomach, my toes, my soul-the best meal of my life." (pg.25)

There was a lot of action and description in this quote and the use of senses. Maxine Hong as the character Fa Mulan, watches the deer to find the types of food that are edible. I think that it's interesting how she uses the term 'fungus of immortality' as if it's the food that will make her survive longer in the wild and will make her stronger and less vulnerable to anything that might hurt her. I thought it was also funny and interesting where she says that the food that she's collected in the wild has become the 'best meal of her life' - is that implying that the food from the wilderness is natural therefore making it the best for your body? or did she just really enjoy those types of food?

"The rabbit and I studied each other. Rabbits taste like chickens...It turned its face once toward me, then jumped into the fire. The fire went down for a moment, as if crouching in surprise, then the flames shot up taller than before. When the fire became calm again, I saw the rabbit had turned into meat, browned just right. I ate it, knowing the rabbit had sacrificed itself for me. It had made me a gift of meat." (pg. 26)

While reading 'White Tigers' I came upon this quote which really caught my attention because the rabbit jumped in the fire while Maxine Hong was on the verge of dying from starvation. She had been making eye contact with the animal and suddenly it just 'JUMPS' and I thought this was really amusing. It was a symbol of sacrifice and possibly a sign that the old man and woman had been watching her and when they saw how hungry she was they sent this animal to give her a meal.