Brave Orchid: Woman Warrior

Here is my character analysis of Maxine’s mom, a.k.a. Brave Orchid.

I read about 15 pages of the third chapter, Shaman, in The Woman Warrior. This chapter begins with Maxine explaining how every once in a while, her mom takes out a metal tube that “holds her medical diploma.” Through Maxine’s storytelling, mixing some imagination with what her mother has told her, I learned a lot about Maxine’s mother.

Brave Orchid was living in China while her husband was living in America. The husband was happy living in America, as Maxine describes him in photos, but Brave Orchid was not. The father did not come back to China, or send for his wife. What he did do, was send her money. Because Brave Orchid’s two children had died, she used the money for herself. She left her Chinese village on a ship, heading for Canton where she would study to be a doctor.

At the school, Brave Orchid lived in a room with five other women, but she was very happy. She took pleasure in having her own space and unpacking her belongings. She considered it a privilege to have space to call her own, as minimal as it was. Brave Orchid was free of the family duties she had in China, and all those Chinese traditions.

Soon, Maxine’s mother established herself as an elite, intelligent woman. She built her reputation as a brilliant scholar, though she would never let the other woman know her real age, or the fact that she stayed awake at night studying while the rest of them were sleeping.

Brave Orchid demonstrated her bravery when she volunteered to sleep in the Ghost Room without fear, and defeated the Sitting Ghost. She earned even more respect than she already had.

In the pages I read, it seems as though Maxine is proud of her mother and looks up to her, like she does to Fa Mu Lan. Brave Orchid is like Fa Mu Lan, another woman warrior.

Something that I find a little weird though is how earlier it didn’t seem like Maxine enjoyed her mother-daughter relationship. She spoke of how she could never be good enough for her mother, but now she speaks of her mom in admiration. Maybe Maxine is just showing that she has mixed emotions about her mother.