Russell 1Atticus Russell

The Tale of Mulan

Although the different iterations of the tale of Mulan are vastly different from each other,

they share many similarities. In Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior the tale of Mulan

serves to contrast sharply with the role of women in Chinese society is that is portrayed in the

rest of the book. Mulan is showed to be a strong, independent woman that fights for her family,

her village, and her country. This is shown when she confronts the baron. "I want your life in

payment for your crimes against the villagers,"(Kingston 43.) While doing this, Mulan maintains

key feminine aspects and does not completely assume the role of a man. She becomes pregnant,

and despite this continues to fight, and then gives birth to a baby. "When I became pregnant... I

wore my armor altered so I looked like a powerful, big man,"(Kingston 39.) The main thematic

elements of this story are love, loyalty, honor, family, and courage. The key plot differences that

separate this story from the others are the fact that she does not volunteer to take her father's

place in the draft until the middle of the story, and that in the other stories there are no old people

who train her, although it could be said that the long training sequences with Li Shang in the

movie are the equivalent. The overall message of the tale of Mulan in Woman Warrior is that

there is an alternate course to simply being a wife for Chinese women.

In The Ballad of Hua Mulan, like the other stories, Mulan takes her father's place in the

army in a time of war. This ballad deals more with gender identity with anything else. In this

story Mulan does not really have a strong personal identity, and she is referred to as "daughter",

stripping her of all her own identity except for that of responsibility to her parents. "They ask

Daughter who is in her heart, They ask Daughter who is on her mind,"(page 1.) The war is talked

Russell 2about only briefly, but the account of it is more solemn. "Chilly light shines on iron armor.

Generals die in a hundred battles, Stout soldiers return after ten years."(page 2.) The main

sequences of the ballad are the preparation to leave for war, describing the scene in the markets.

The overall message of the ballad though, does not involve these, and is really a question of

gender and one's own identity. "Traveling together for twelve years They didn't know Mu-lan

was a girl. The he-hare's feet go hop and skip, The she-hare's eyes are muddled and fuddled.

Two hares running side by side close to the ground, How can they tell if I am he or she?"(page

4.)

Disney's modern movie adaptation of Mulan combines some aspects of the original

stories with some new plot elements. Similar to the other iterations, Mulan is a girl who takes her

father's place in a draft, but unlike the other stories she is an outcast in the beginning of the

story, unfit for marriage. This brings shame upon her family, highlighting traditional Chinese

morals. When Mulan has the chance to save her father and honor her family, she takes it.

However, in this story, likely to add to the humor of the tale, Disney adds the element of Mulan's

ancestors into the story, and a pint-sized sassy dragon. Some of the bloodshed and more adult

themes are also removed to make the movie appeal to wider audiences. Another key similarity

between the movie and the story in Woman Warrior is that Mulan has a specific nemesis, who

has done wrong to people close to her, be it through Shan Yu killing Li Shang's father, or

through the baron killing and torturing villagers. In both stories Mulan's character has the duality

of being both a fearsome warrior and a beacon of hope and change for those around her.

Russell 3

Works Referenced

Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood among Ghosts. New

York: Knopf, 1976. Print.

Russell 4Mulan. Dir. Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. Perf. Ming-Na Wen and Eddie Murphy. Walt

Disney

Home Video, 1998. DVD.

Ows. "The Ballad of Hua Mulan." Ode of Mulan (n.d.): n. page. Columbia.edu. 6th century a.d.

Web. 21 Feb. 2016.