A Study of The Women Warrior and God Help the Child from Perspective of Role Theory--Take Bride and No Name Woman as an Example

温婧 吴楠

云南大学，云南昆明 650500

The Women Warrior and God Help the Child,respectively written by Maxine Hong Kingston and Toni Morrison,tell stories about women’s sufferings during the pursuit of self-development.In God Help the Child,Bride is a black woman who gets rid of the constraint of her role playing in childhood and finally realizes her role innovation.However,the No Name woman in The Woman Warrior is a typical traditional Chinese woman who finally becomes a victim in the male-dominated society.

According to Ralph Linton,role implies“the expected set of rights and duties” (Linton,1936：582).That is to say,the society has its own set of expectations on the individual and the person is supposed to behave accordingly.The role of human beings experiences three stages of changes：role playing,role conflict and role transition.This thesis mainly studies Bride and No Name Woman from perspective of role theory.By analyzing their different role playing and the potential role conflicts,a conclusion can be found that different from Bride,No Name Women does not complete the role transition and fails to realize her self-fulfillment.

Part One Role Playing

Role playing refers to the fact that the individual takes on a series of deeds and behaviors according to his specific status.It is the expectation on him and social or cultural norms.In God Help The Child,when Bride was a little girl,she played her role as a black girl under Sweetness’s expectation.Sweetness thought that the birth of Bride was a mistake because Bride was a kind of“midnight black” and“Sudanese black” (Morrison,2015：3),and in order to protect themselves in the society that full of racial discrimination,Sweetness expected Bride to play a silent and inferior role.As a result,Bride called her mother as“Sweetness” rather than“Mother” to prevent others from suspecting their blood relationship.Similar to Bride,in The Women Warrior,the No Name Woman plays the role as a traditional Chinese woman.She was required to be obedience to the norms of the male-dominated society.She had no rights to choose her husband：“When the family found a young man in the next village to be her husband,she had stood tractably beside the best rooster” (Kingston,1976：7).She just stayed with her husband for one day and had to spend all the whole life loyally waiting her husband to come back.Whether she wanted or not,the No Name Woman had to behave in accordance with her father and husband’s wishes.

Part Two Role Conflict

With the development of the self-fulfillment,there will be a conflict between individual and his role playing.“Role conflict usually occurs when the individual in the role cannot meet the different expectations and demands on himself.” (Turner,2001：244) When Bride grew up,she gradually realized the sickness of her role playing in childhood and started resisting against her role playing.She didn’t try to maintain the sick relationship between Sweetness and her anymore and worked hardly and successfully in her job.She took the advice of Jeri to wear white and became an attractive woman in other people’s eyes.In a word,Bride was gradually aware of the contradiction between herself and her role in the society and tried to make some changes to fight for her self-development.

On contrary,No Name Woman was silent and bore the burden that the society had regulated her.She gave birth to a baby that was not her husband’s,which was considered to be an unforgivable for her family and villagers.No one was willing to mention her name.She was punished by the elders in family and had to eat alone in an“outcast table” (Kingston,1976：7).Villagers“threw mud and rocks at the house” and even“threw eggs and began slaughtering stock” (Kingston,1976：7).However,to a large extent,she was more a victim than an unfaithful woman,but she said nothing for her and bore all the violent and nonviolent treatments quietly.

Part Three Role Transition

Role transition is“the process of changing from one set of expected positional behaviors in a social system to another.” (Allen and Evert Van de Vliert,1984：3) Both Bride and No Name Woman suffered great discriminations either from race or gender,which resulted in a huge conflict between their role playing and sense of self.Under this circumstance,Bride made a great breakthrough and successfully changed her role from a little black girl to a loving mother.Touched by Rain’s miserable experiences,Bride successfully found her true self and cleared her misunderstandings about Booker.In the end,Bride got pregnant and successfully transformed her role to a loving mother.By contrast,No Name Woman failed to realize her role transition.She gave birth to a child in pigsty without anyone with her and then jumped into the well with her baby.Till her death,she didn’t tell the name of that man who got her pregnant.

In conclusion,both Bride and No Name Woman played an inferior role in their early life,and when the different expectations and demands on themselves occurs,Bride struggled to find her real sense of self and finally transformed her role.However,No Name Woman chose to be silent and finally quit herself,which cannot be regarded as a way of resistance but a failure of her role transition.