Kitchen Gods Wife
Kitchen God’s WifeTitle
Amy Tan’s title The Kitchen God’s Wife initially bewildered me, as I acquainted nothing about the Chinese belief in the Kitchen God. Nonetheless, Tan rationally correlates the title to the novel’s contents by almost instantaneously acquainting me with the story behind the Kitchen God and his wife. Citations to the Kitchen God appear throughout the book, reminding me about the title, but I do not completely understand the title’s significance until the end. The steadily agonizing life of Winnie and the lack of anyone to applaud her for putting up with Wen Fu mirror the adversity life of the Kitchen God’s wife. Even Winnie realizes the comparison, saying that she was like the Kitchen God’s wife. “Nobody worship her either. She was forgotten” (620). Both wives suffer horrendously in their marriages, survive, and turn out happier and more giving than their husbands, but still receive no apperception for their courage. The title hence provides a suitable narration of Winnie’s ordeals, but does so inventively.
Instead of saying outright that the novel confronts with, among other subjects, a regretful marriage and its lasting scars, Tan exploits her imagination to originate a title that only hints at her themes. The title The Kitchen God’s Wife grasps my attention because I wonder what the expression means, and what a book with such a title embraces. Tan’s title creatively provokes interest in her work and has significance to the novel’s contents.
Setting
Tan’s book begins in California in the present, but shifts to China before, during, and after the second World War, and then returns to California as Winnie completes her story. The novel covers all of Winnie’s life, laying the action in a realistic setting. I more voluntary believe what occurs since Tan sets her novel in existing countries.
Tan conscientiously describes various Chinese and American superstitions, customs, and religions throughout The Kitchen God’s Wife. When Winnie, her father, her aunts discuss her prospective marriage to Wen Fu Tan exhibits Chinese wedding rituals. Tan also teaches me, in a skillful and interesting manner, about Chinese gods, superstition and luck. I learn how Chinese believe that “everything is connected” (481) through luck and chance when Penut discovers her fortune and Winnie thinks that this forever changes her life.
Tan did not intend for The Kitchen God’s Wife to be read as just another typical interesting story. The novel has an underlying setting about relationship, also. Tan stresses, through Winnie’s constant self-blame for her hardships, that you cannot blame yourself for things, which you cannot control. She uses Winnie’s regrets over her past actions to tell me that instead of focusing on “what-ifs,” you must move on to what you can now do to change and improve the situation.
Tan carefully pays attention to describe her settings so that I can clearly picture what the charters see and...
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