It is important to recognize that the past and the present can coexist in a single work to remarkable effect. In Maxine Hong Kingston's "Woman Warrior," memories are so closely associated with the present and legends that it becomes difficult to distinguish fact from fiction; indeed, the subtitle of Kingston's work is "Memoirs of a Childhood Among Ghosts", implying that the author did not intend to make such distinctions. Kingston does this in order to suspend the reader's disbelief just long enough to give credibility to his own thoughts. In Sylvia Plath's poetry, however, past and present blend for a much less overt purpose. Even if readers do not doubt Plath's thoughts, they may question her motivations. Some of his poetry is written in the present, others take place in the past and still others move from one tense to another. Although it may seem that Kingston and Plath's radically different writing styles achieve equally opposite results, their use of memory to explain present events is strikingly similar. In both Kingston's and Plath's works, memories embedded in present events help bridge the gap between two different ways of life, prompting readers to question whether or not the two ways of life can coexist. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In “Woman Warrior,” Kingston begins most chapters with a memory of her mother telling a story. The chapter begins with a return to the past, but as we follow the story we are brought back to the present. Thanks to this simple formula, the reader manages to connect the Chinese way of life and the American way of life that the author spent his entire childhood trying to reconcile. For example, Kingston tells the Chinese legend that white crane boxing was invented by a woman who was taught by the spirit of the crane. This precedes the story of a young girl living in the mountains (told in the first person, as a remembrance), where she is taught to be a warrior woman. Kingston ends this chapter by offering memories of the years she spent in Berkeley during the Vietnam conflict. While the transition from one tale to the next seems deceptively simple, the transition that Kingston is actually trying to tell is much more arduous: the shift from traditional Chinese culture to the more modern perspective of Chinese-Americans. Kingston also uses memory. to inform the reader of the marked differences between Chinese and American lifestyles. Rather than simply inserting bits of Chinese culture into the story, she uses stories and memories to reveal the contrasts. In the story of Brave Orchid and her sister Moon Orchid, one sister tells another about the sons of her husband's second wife: “He has two sons. You have two sons. You take them away from him. You become their mother” (Kingston 125). ). The assumption that one can take other people's children is contradicted several pages later when the attempt is made half-heartedly. The result is insane: Kingston subtly conveys to the reader the difficulty of suddenly mixing two disparate cultures. The transition takes place throughout his childhood. There are many places in “Woman Warrior” where Kingston uses this method to educate the reader about traditional Chinese culture; in fact, the contrast between Chinese culture and American culture is found in every story and in every memory. Plath's transition is a little more complicated. She has difficultyface many problems; among them, how to live after the death of your father. Many of her poems deal with this struggle: "Electra on Azalea Path", for example, reveals how she felt when her father died, how she coped with the consequences, and how she continues to live with the effects of his death. The complexity is remarkable, because it combines times and interweaves memories throughout the work: Another kind of redness disturbs me: The day your relaxed sail drank my sister's breath The flat sea turned purple like this bad fabric My mother unrolled the last time you came home (Plath 75). Plath begins in the present, noting what is bothering her now, and returns to the event that caused this discomfort. In this memory of the “sailing” of her father and her sister, she incorporates another memory, that of her mother; it's clear that many elements of her past play a role in how she feels now. In fact, it is this very complexity that allows for such in-depth understanding. Because she is able to reflect on her memories, Plath gains a deeper understanding of what is tormenting her. In her poem “Daddy,” Plath remembers many times with her father and how she tried to “come back, come back, come back to him.” " (Plath 193), after her death by her own suicide. Today, plagued by her negative memories, she realizes that she is ready to move on with her life; indeed, she can. It seems that this only now that she can face her past; years after his death, is she finally able to say, “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm done” (Plath 194). to tell the reader how she moved from the traditional Chinese way of life to the Chinese-American way of life, and Plath uses memory for a similar purpose: moving from a harmful childhood spent dealing with "daddy" to the present, where she is finally able to move forward An important reason for using memory in a text is to reveal how what happened in the past shapes who one is in the present. Plath does an excellent job of conveying this. idea in the poem "The Disquieting Muses". In this wonderfully descriptive poem, Plath accuses her mother of not protecting her mental health when she was a child by talking about three ladies who followed her since childhood, hovering to the left of her crib. . She remembers bedtime stories that were of no comfort, singing, and Ovaltine not being strong enough to keep the three strange ladies at bay. She remembers the moment when the three "aunts" began to replace her mother's maternal duties; they taught him to dance and play the piano like them, with wood and emptiness. “I have learned, I have learned, I have learned elsewhere, / From muses you have not hired, dear mother” (Plath 55). By the end of the poem, set in the present, Plath has become one of them: faceless, unable even to frown to show her presence. Although the idea is simple, the effect of memory is imperative in the theme of Plath's work and that of Kingston. In fact, Kingston's entire text is a collection of memories that tell the reader how she came to be herself today. It is a compilation of memorable events, legends, stories, people and dreams; when the narrator's mother cuts her frenulum (Kingston 164), it changes what she will become. When she yells at her classmate for being silent and gets sick for the next eighteen months (Kingston 176), it changes her future. By reflecting on these memories, Kingston allows the reader to see how she has been shaped and transformed by each past event, just like Plath. Another essential reason for using.