Title: The Kitchen God's Wife
Author: Amy Tan
Date: Dec.17, 1996
Synopsis: Amy Tan writes of an Asian-American woman, trying to hold on to a heritage that is castrating to a woman's power.
Review~
book plot:
This is a story between a mother and daughter. It's the tale Winnie Louise tells Pearl, to explain her past-- and her silence. The story she tells could be descibed as touching, horrific, and a joyous outpouring. How can a free woman embrace a heritage that doesn't accept her? Winnie tries to answer this.
Kitchen God spans the lifetime of Winnie. It begins with her life in China. She was alive during some of China's more dark periods-- when Japan invaded China, the nationalistic forces rising and falling, the empowerment of communist forces. We see how these major events impact through the eyes of one who doesn't understand, and so we-- who are much in the same position, can clearly see what is going on. We also see, an almost parallel invasion and conquoring of Winnie by Wen Fu, her first husband.
What Wen Fu does to her is degrading, but it isn't out of place in the society. She accepts this, and so she continually looses her humanity to him-- much like China lost it's humanity to the communists. Winnie finds her strength as the immigrants found theirs', and not only does she escape her husband, but her country as well. But her life as a Chinese woman isn't as different as she thought. In honoring her heritage, she honors that which enslaved her. Do you reject your heritage, even though there are parts that are richer than the whole? What of the Chinese gods who promise a balance will be struck?
In the end, Pearl wonders if there's a new "kitchen god". She wonders if the old culture has evolved with the new generation, or if it is the new embracing the old. It's realized that Winnie has passed on to Pearl the balance she always sought herself.
I enjoyed this book tremendously. Amy Tan wrote from the perspective of Winnie, rather than a dispassionate third party-- and so we can sense the struggle of this woman and her country. I felt very close to this woman by the end of the book. I highly recommend it as part of your reading list.
Asian-American insights:
The Asian culture isn't about the inferiority of women in its society. It's about the traditions of devotion to balance. For every high, a low. For every dark, a light. It seems natural to the society for the man and woman to carry different roles. They embrace the fertility of women and their nurturing instincts. It forms a role for the woman that in its self is a kind of prayer. Each action that supports men, is seen as a balance to man. And that balance, is what the society sought. By introducing Eastern lifestyles, the balance became a chaos of independent women. The harshness Asian women encountered was a response of desperation by a society, to keep its religious devotion alive. This doesn't validate the virtual enslavement of women, but it goes far in explaining its wide-spread hold on Asian society.
Amy Tan:
Amy Tan is a woman of Chinese decent, raised in America. She was given the freedom of all women here, and given her ancestery in small bits. After her father and brother died, her mother revealed an earlier marriage and three half-sisters. The three sisters had grown up in Chinese society, and Amy was fearful that she would become an outsider to her mother because of that. She met with her family, and found her fears unfounded. But it did open up a conflict between her American and Chinese heritage. It spills over into her early work. We meet characters who are in turmoil over who they are, and their place in society. It's in her latest book, A Hundred Secret Senses, that her fictional world has come to terms with itself. Perhaps she has too.
Links~
Amy Tan:
Extensive web resource site on Amy Tan.
A good solid site.
Women in Asian-American society:
Chinese women in american culture.
A critique of Amy Tan, but focusing on women in general.
An essay about the silence of Asian-American women.
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