White Tigers Lit Circle Post

Yesterday in class, we started to talk about the chapter, White Tigers in The Woman Warrior. We mainly talked about how Fa Mu Lan is a woman and the disadvantages she as because she is one. She is different from the other soldiers since she's a woman. She had to train differently because of that. She was also the hero of her village. The village imputed the title of hero to her name because everyone gave her their sons so she would have an army to fight with. The village believed she was the one that will keep the village safe by going out and fighting the bad guys. We also talked about the rabbit that jumped into her fire so she could eat. I explained in my other post that the rabbit allowed her to eat because she didn't have food. We said in class that this is an example of Fa Mu Lan tapping into the nature to help her on her journeys.

I started to read on, and saw more and more themes in the chapter. One theme is love. Fa Mu Lan finally meets her husband. Fa Mu Lan says that this is the first time in her life that she has a partner. Later, she becomes pregnant. She still fights, wearing her armor differently to hide her pregnant belly. After she gives birth, she fights with her baby in a sling under her armor. She loves her baby so much, that she takes him with her into battle so she always knows where he is. It may seem dangerous to take a baby into battle, but Fa Mu Lan always needs to know where her son is.

Another theme is feminism. Fa Mu Lan is proving to the world that a woman can be a great warrior. She killed so many men on her missions. I guess what the author is trying to say is it doesn't matter what gender you are, if a woman works hard, she can be just as good as a man. Fa Mu Lan is also not the only woman warrior. Fa Mu Lan arrives to the village of the baron that drafted her brother. She learns the baron is a very contumacious man, saying that he hasn't done anything wrong and made all of his wealth by himself. She slaughters the baron, and in his house, finds a bunch of women locked in a room. She sets them free, and later, they would become a army of woman warriors that kill men and boys. What this chapter is saying about feminism is that in old China, women could become warriors be something other than slaves and wives. But, as the chapter goes on, we learn that women don't have the same freedom in present day China.