Didi--The Kitchen God's Wife

Amy Tan’s novel, “The Kitchen God’s Wife” is a hidden gem of a book that should be incorporated in modern day education. A somber tale of Chinese born Winnie Louie, a woman who was born into the patriarchal society of World War II era China, as well as during the Chinese Civil War. The novel is a frame story originating from the perspective of Winnie’s only daughter Pearl, a Chinese American, who has been hiding her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis from her overbearing mother. And for Pearl it is not hard to hide, because of the cultural and language gap between her mother and herself. But due to the third wedding of her cousin and a funeral for her Great Aunt Du the day after, Pearl and her mother are brought together where both must come to terms with the secrets they have been hiding and be truthful with one another. After the events of the wedding and funeral, the bulk of the story is narrated by Winnie who only pauses from her storytelling when Pearl or Aunt Helen,an old friend of Winne’s, interjects or to signify a day’s end. Throughout Winnie’s story she tells her audience,in this most cases Pearl, about her life before America. She details her life that began as the only daughter of a concubine who disappeared after being suspected of Marxist connections. And from the time of her mother’s disappearance Winnie’s life belonged to the men in them. Winnie’s father sent her to live on an island called Tsungming with her cousins and aunts. In order to have a financial leg up on the rest of their Chinese counterparts, Winnie’s aunts arrange her marriage to a young man named Wen Fu(who is the devil incarnate). From that point on Winnie’s location and life are all up to the demands of her military husband Wen Fu. Wen Fu served in the Chinese air force, and as a result he and Winnie travelled throughout China from base to base. During this time Winnie was subject to verbal, physical, and sexual abuse from Wen Fu. And as the war progressed in China the degradation of Winnie’s life grew as well, the abuse she suffered went unconfronted. The rest of the Kitchen God’s Wife chronicles Winnie’s life with Wen Fu and her struggle to escape from his grasp along with all the important life details in between. Tan is the author of many other novels that center on the lives of females and their Asian ancestry, in which you can see the recurring theme of the female story as an instrument to show endurance. And in this story Tan presents a highly believable plot line for the central characters, as most readers will be familiar with the situations that occurred in China during World War II and the Chinese cultural revolution. The book's message and theme can also be seen through the title and its allusion to the Chinese fable about Zao Jun or the Kitchen God. In which Jun, a former beggar, marries a woman of wealth and status, but he mistreats her throughout their marriage and when all their money is gone he leaves her and turns to a life of begging. One day when he sees her while begging his guilt causes him to end his life by throwing himself into a fire and for doing so receives the title of God from the king for his “courage”. Tan uses this fable as the title to relate to Winnie’s story, Wen Fu represents the unfairly praised Kitchen God, and Winnie is the unnamed Kitchen God’s Wife who receives no praise for living with the abusive Kitchen God and remaining faithful to him. Tan’s writing has a rare effect, it truly makes the audience read from line to line and delve deep into the world that she creates. And while this story has a female main character and her exploits often require some amount of female prerogative, at the same time the necessity to be in the mindset of a female in a heavily patriarchal society helps the audience better understand the character’s struggle. Along with the theme of female endeavor, Tan does bring into play issues that affect the world today even though the novel was published in 1992. One of the most prominent when read, was the issue of rape, and for most this is a subject that causes extremely strong feelings, as it should. Tan uses this all too real life experience that happens to her main character to illustrate the state of womanhood during the time period in focus; women were very much objects and had to accept the sexual abuse against them because their country and societal peers allowed it to go on. Again in highlighting this harsh reality Tan is forcing her audience into feeling what these characters felt and experiencing the mindset of these misunderstood women. Even if this review does not convince you to go and read the novel, I would honestly suggest giving it a chance. I only started reading it because were given points for having SSR books and I forgot mine that day so I just read the first thing I found. And I could not put it down after that.