It is important to recognize that the past and present can coexist in a single work with remarkable results. In “Woman Warrior” by Maxine Hong Kingston, memories are so closely linked to the present and legends that it becomes difficult to distinguish reality from fiction; in fact, the subtitle of Kingston's work is "Memoirs of a Boyhood Among Ghosts," implying that the author did not intend such distinctions to be made. Kingston does this to suspend the reader's disbelief just enough to provide credibility to his own thoughts. In Sylvia Plath's poetry, however, past and present merge with much less obvious purpose. While readers may not doubt Plath's thoughts, they may question her motives. Some of his poems are written in the present tense, others are set in the past, and still others jump from one time to another. Although it may seem that Kingston and Plath's dramatically different writing styles lead to equally opposite results, their use of memory to explain present events is strikingly similar. In both Kingston's and Plath's work, memories integrated with present events help bridge the gap between two different ways of living, prompting readers to consider whether or not the two ways can coexist. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't 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 flashback to the past, but following the story we arrive in the present day. Through this simple formula, the reader is able to connect the Chinese lifestyle and the American lifestyle that the author tried to reconcile throughout her childhood. For example, Kingston tells the Chinese legend of how white crane boxing was invented by a woman who was taught by the crane spirit. This precedes the story of a girl living in the mountains (told in first person, as I recall), where she is taught to be a warrior woman. Kingston concludes this chapter by offering memories of his years in Berkeley during the Vietnam conflict. While the transition from one story to the next appears deceptively simple, the transition Kingston is actually trying to tell is much more arduous: the transition from traditional Chinese culture to the more modern Chinese-American perspective. Kingston also uses memory to inform the reader of the stark differences between the Chinese and American lifestyles. Instead of simply inserting snippets of Chinese culture into the narrative, he uses stories and memories to reveal the contrasts. In the story of Brave Orchid and her sister Moon Orchid, one sister talks to the other about the children 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 another's children is quashed several pages later, when the attempt is made half-heartedly. The result is madness: Kingston subtly conveys to the reader the difficulty of suddenly uniting two disparate cultures. The transition occurs throughout his adolescence. There are so 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. Struggles to come to terms with many problems; among them, how to live after his father's death. Many of his poems address this struggle: "Electra on AzaleaPath", for example, reveals how she felt when her father died, how she dealt with the consequences, and how she continues to live with the effects of his passing. The complexity is remarkable, as she combines tenses and mixes memories throughout the work: Another kind of blush disturbs me: The day your loose sail drank my sister's breath The flat sea turned purple like that evil cloth My mother unrolled on your last homecoming (Plath 75 begins). with the present tense, noticing what bothers her now, and goes back to the event that caused this discomfort. Within that memory of her father and sister's "sailing", she incorporates another memory, this one of her own mother; it is clear that many elements of her past play a role in how she feels in the present. Indeed, it is this complexity that allows for such in-depth understanding deeper than what ails her. In her poem "Daddy", Plath recalls numerous moments with her father and how she attempted to "come back, come back, come back to [him]" (Plath 193), after his death by suicide. Now, in the grip of her negative memories, she realizes that she is ready to move on with her life; indeed, that it can. It seems that only now can he come to terms with his past; years after his death, he can finally say, "Daddy, Daddy, you bastard, I'm done" (Plath 194). Kingston uses memory to tell the reader how she went from the traditional Chinese lifestyle to the Chinese-American lifestyle, and Plath uses memory for a similar purpose: to go from a harmful childhood spent dealing with "dad" to the style of present life, where he 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 we are in the present. Plath does a great job of conveying this idea in the poem “The Disturbing Muses.” In this beautifully descriptive poem, Plath accuses her mother of failing to protect her sanity as a child by speaking of three women who have followed her since childhood, hovering to the left of her crib. He remembers the bedtime stories that were no comfort, the singing, and the Ovaltine that wasn't strong enough to keep the three creepy women at bay. She remembers when the three "aunts" began to replace her mother's maternal duties; they taught her to dance and play the piano like them, in a wooden and empty way. “I have learned, I have learned, I have learned elsewhere, / From muses not hired by you, dear mother” (Plath 55). By the poem's conclusion, set in the present, Plath has become one of them: faceless, unable to even frown to show her presence. Although the idea is simple, the effect of memory is central to the theme of both Plath and Kingston's work. Kingston's entire text, in fact, is a collection of memories that explain to the reader how she became herself in the present. It is a collection of remembered events, legends, tales, people and dreams; when the narrator's mother cuts her frenulum (Kingston 164), it changes who he will become. When he yells at his schoolmate for staying silent and becomes ill for the next eighteen months (Kingston 176), his future changes. By reflecting on these memories, Kingston allows the reader to see how she has been shaped and changed by each past event, just as Plath was. Another fundamental reason for the use of memory in every woman's work is to create a sense of carefully constructed memory. chaos. Kingston jumps from memory to history, from present to past: sometimes we are outsiders, hearing the story through the author's mother, other times we listen to the author's words, and still other times we witness the author living out her own stories And.