The Woman Warrior Lesson Plan

What does the term “ghost” refer to in this chapter? How is this significant to the narrator's experience of the world, and to her mother's experience of the world?

Sometimes the word “ghost” refers to the more conventional definition of a ghost, i.e. a spirit, as in Brave Orchid’s battle with the “Sitting Ghost.” However, the narrator also uses “ghost” to refer to Americans themselves, as when she writes of White Ghosts, Black Ghosts, Taxi Ghosts, Police Ghosts, and so on. This illustrates the alienation and otherness that the narrator experienced as someone from a Chinese family growing up in America; the Americans she came in contact with did not seem like fellow humans...