The Dilemma

"The real punishment was not the raid swiftly inflicted by the villagers, but the family's deliberately forgetting her. Her betrayal so maddened them, they saw to it that she would suffer forever, even after death. Always hungry, always needing..." (140)

Whenever the narrator of No Name Woman is faced with a change in her life, her mother supplies her with a parable; a story to grow up on as if these tales could somehow establish a reality. In this case it is the story of her mother's brother, an aunt forgotten by both family and time. The intended lesson of the story was one of abstinence, an alternative to the expected story of the birds and the bees. The narrator instead took a different meaning, one tied to her struggles assimilating into U.S. culture as a first American generation.

The societal and cultural expectations of the United States and China are two sides of different coins of different currency. American women are flirtatious and bold while Chinese women are expected to be meek and follow orders, as seen in the back story the narrator created for her aunt. The narrator is confused by which role she should take and is further torn by the impact such a decision has on her role in the family. Should she adapt to an American lifestyle where she forgets the past and live in the present? Or should she live in the past, worshiping ancestors and hoping to be remembered?

Question: Does the narrator's anonymity in the story reflect the choice she made to devote pages to her forgotten aunt's spirit?