FROM SUBSERVIENCE TO SELF-ASSERTION: TRANSFORMING FEMALE IDENTITY IN AMY TAN’S THE KITCHEN GOD’S WIFE

Abstract

Amy Tan, the well-known Chinese American author has won acclaim for her depiction of various aspects of the mother-daughter relationship and the depiction of the female struggle against patriarchal society. The Kitchen God’s Wife is the story of Winnie Louie, a Chinese immigrant, as told to her Americanborn dentist daughter, Pearl. Weili, as Winnie is known in China, is the victim of an abusive marriage. She is the wife of the cruel Wen Fu, whom she later mentally renames “The Kitchen God” Weili endures considerable physical, mental and emotional torture with passivity because she the ideal of the subservient Chinese wife
has been inculcated in her. Weili’s perspective opens up when she meets Jimmy Louie, a Chinese American soldier. He gives her a new, Western name, that of “Winnie,” and paves a way for her search for an identity apart from her husband. Winnie has to face a series of horrendous trials before she marries Jimmy and  settlesin the United States. After Jimmy’s death, Winnie forges out a new, independent life for herself. She gives her daughter the courage to overcome her illness by fashioning a new goddess from a defective statuette. Winnie names this symbolic recreation of her own self as “The Kitchen God’s Wife.” From victim, she becomes avictor, capable of nurturing and protecting her progeny