Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife Essay

As a first-year college student, I have been immersed into a new wealth of opportunities, people, and experiences. However, there is still something that stops me from harnessing my full potential and fully submerging myself into the college life. Bert Gervais would describe this as my “lid.” My lid is the barrier to my success. It is what prevents me from being who I truly want to be and stepping outside of my comfort zone. When asked to identify these barriers, the main obstacle I face is myself. I am the sole creator of my lid. I am the one who stops me from speaking my mind, from getting involved and trying new things. Everyone has their own lid. Identifying the problem is only half the journey to finding a solution.

Tan shows that she is embarrassed in her family for their lacking of proper American manners. Although at the time she felt ashamed, the words spoken by her mother, “Inside you must always be Chinese. You must be proud you are different. Your only shame is to have shame” became better understood later in life. In Amy Tan's work, the strong use of description of both the event that are occurring and Amy’s feelings about them, draws the reader in and makes them feel as if they are part of the action. Tan's Chinese-American culture and life stories are imprinted in her writing which gives the reader an opportunity to gain knowledge about the way of life in her family, friends, and even the Chinese culture. Tan's main purpose of writing is to inform and educate people about growing up as a minority in the American society.

Linda Pastan’s poem Marks is a short narrative many women will be able to identify with, as it addresses the tasks by which a stay at home mother is measured. Reduced to a mere extension of her “work,” or family, the female narrator describes in detail not only the domesticity that rules her life, but also the fact that her family has the audacity to assign grades to her efforts. Her husband instrumentalizes her by treating her not as a partner, but as a tool to satisfy his need for to be clothed and fed. He also exhibits fungibility over her in that she is interchangeable with other woman, rather than being her own unique person in the relationship. Finally, he grades his wife even on her performance in the bedroom, reducing her even further to body, vice an active participant in this most intimate facet of their lives. Fortunately, the wife’s self-esteem remains intact, despite her family’s best efforts to dislodge it. In her feminist poem Marks, Linda Pastan highlights the power a husband has over his wife as he subjects her to instrumentality, fungibility, and reduction to body, yet the woman’s inner strength refuses to bow to their systemic oppression.

The book describes how complex societal dictation dominated the lives of women and left no room for growth as a unique individual with a passion other than homemaking. It called upon women to take a stand against these so called norms and “seek new opportunities for themselves” (“Betty Friedan”). It instantly became sensation and “continues to be regarded as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century” (Michals). It struck a nerve with all women alike, leading to a “feminist explosion” (Kaplan) because of the recognition of themselves in Friedan’s work (Parry) and the familiarity shared between the women created a sense of community. It also brought public awareness to the glamorized domestication of

In Maxine Hong Kingston’s essay “No Name Woman,” Kingston speculates the life of her deceased aunt from an anecdote her mother tells her. Kingston’s aunt is never discussed and is essentially dead to the family and village since she was impregnated by a man other than her husband. As a result, the village raided the family’s home, killed their livestock, and destroyed dinnerware to show Kingston’s aunt a fraction of the betrayal she had caused the town. Kingston’s version of the story retells her aunt being coerced to pursue a new man other than her husband that ends in an unplanned pregnancy. Killing herself, Kingston’s aunt tries to end the consistent bombardment of rejection and humiliation that her sins have caused her by jumping into the village well. To conclude, Kingston states she is haunted by her aunt’s ghost and the Chinese people fear being dragged into the well as a substitute.

In Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “The Mother”, the author expresses a lot of her thoughts and feelings in order to share her experience. It is written in the first person and the narrator is adopted by the author herself, Gwendolyn Brooks, who embodies a weaken mother. In this poem, Gwendolyn Brooks tries to portray what abortion is for a woman and to describe the harsh truth about how women feel afterwards. Thus, this poem is mostly targeted to aim females and their feelings. First of all, abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy. First, the narrator uses many imageries, description, and a precise choice of words to explain this emotional topic of abortion. Second, her use

For centuries, women have had the role of being the perfect and typical house wife; needs to stay home and watch the children, cook for husbands, tend to the laundry and chores around the house. In her short story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid provides a long one sentence short story about a mother giving specific instructions to her daughter but with one question towards the end, with the daughter’s mother telling her daughter if she had done all the instructions to become a so called “perfect” woman, every man would want her. Kincaid’s structuring in “Girl,” captures a demanding and commanding tone. This short story relates to feminist perspectives. The mother expects a great deal from her daughter to have a certain potential and she does not hesitate to let her daughter understand that. As a matter of fact, the story is about two pages long, made into one long sentence - almost the whole time the mother is giving her daughter directions to follow - conveys a message to the reader that the mother demands and expects great potential in her daughter. The daughter is forced to listen and learn from what her mother is telling her to do to become the perfect housewife. Throughout the story, Kincaid uses the symbols of the house and clothing, benna and food to represent the meanings of becoming a young girl to a woman and being treated like one in society. Women are portrayed to appeal to a man to become the ideal woman in society, while men can do anything they please.

They despise her so much that they cannot wait for her to die, so they can bury her. Generations can only be passed on from father to son, which she is unable to deliver. Therefore, while Winnie is pregnant, her husband attempts to have sex with her again, in order to get enough sperm inside of her, through this, he will be assured that she will give birth to a boy. Wen Fu makes her apologize to him for trying to prevent him from employing such actions. In reality, he despises a baby girl because she will have to get married and sent off to their in-laws home to serve them, not her own family due to the fact that it is not the custom to keep your unmarried daughter in your house forever. Females are not considered the breadwinners or a part of the elderly support system, unlike the males. Moving on, at dinner, her husband and father-in-law get to their meals first. Winnie is only allowed to eat after she picks the food out of her father in law’s beard. Winnie blames mother-in-law for tending her son’s desires as if she is his servant because a woman has no right to be angry at her husband. She then thinks that it is wrong of her to blame her mother in law for her miseries, but that is how she is raised, to never criticize men or the society they rule or Confucius, who made the society. According to Confucius, a virtuous woman is one who entirely submits herself to the service of her husband. In regards to this, it is best for a

The novel The House on Mango Street is filled to the brim with women who are unhappy and unsatisfied with their lives. Readers meet wives who are destined to spend their lives in the kitchen, mothers who waste away cleaning up after their kids, and girls who are stuck in a hole that they can’t escape. Through Sandra Cisneros’s use of literary devices such as motifs, symbolism, and imagery, we are able to learn that the women end up in these situations by conforming to femininity, and we find the theme of women are often held back by their own gender roles.

He was a coward for raping his wife. Doesn't seem like a war hero to me.

In the first place, mother-daughter relations between Chinese mothers and ABC daughters are not easy ones in Tan's novels. They are always problematic. Mothers want to bring up

Women roles in society have been to take care of their families, and do what is required of “ a woman”. In Jamaica Kincaid’s poem Girl, a mother is giving her daughter advice on how to be a woman; simultaneously, reminding her if she does not obey these duties, she will be considered a “slut”. The mother is explaining to her, the role women play in society, how to act around a man, take care of your spouse, and how to never act less than a woman. Reading Kincaid’s poem alongside the academic article titled, The Female Breadwinner: Phenomenological Experience and Gendered Identity in Work/ Family Spaces, I have concluded that women’s roles in society are outrageous; however, they are improving. This poem has more to do with gender roles and less to do with the pride, integrity, and self worth a woman feels internally as a result of the things she has been taught.

The mother-daughter relationship is often scrutinized, publicized, and capitalized on. Whether from tell-all biographies, to humorous sit-coms, or private therapy sessions, this particular relationship dynamic gives some of the most emotion-activating memories. When female authors reflect and write about their relationships with their mothers, they have a tendency to taint their reflections with the opinions they have as an adult, reviewing the actions of their mother when they were young. These opinions set the tone of the story independently and in conjunction with the relationship itself and manifest in creative literary styles that weave an even more intricate story. Case in point, when reviewing the two literary works “I Stand Here

Amy Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife is a novel that centers on women- abuse, secrets and survival. The story’s protagonist is Winnie Louie, a woman who is a survivor because of her many encounters with sorrow. Sorrows such as her mother’s disappearance that she did not see coming when she was only six, and the constant verbal abuse she endures from her relatives makes her very self-doubting because they see her as her mother; a woman that brings shame on the family. Winnie believes that her ill-luck has a hand in all of her misfortunes; misfortunes such as marrying the wrong man, and the death of her four children when they were only infants. She also believes in female empowerment. In the final chapter, Winnie gives

Maya Angelou said, “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow” (Wanderlust 1). The relationship a mother has with her child transcends all other relationships in complexity. Maternity largely contributes to the female identity in part because the ability to sexually reproduce is uniquely female. With this ability often comes an unparalleled feeling of responsibility. That is, mothers experience an inherent desire to protect their children from the world and guide them through life. Serving as a child’s protector then transforms a woman’s perspective, or the female gaze. While these protective instincts often arise naturally, they are also reinforced by the ideas society’s perpetuates about motherhood. Globally, women are expected to assume the roles of wives and mothers. The belief that motherhood is somewhat of a requirement assists in the subjugation of women and reinforces a plethora of gendered stereotypes. While some women enjoy the process of childrearing, others feel that having a family comes at an irreparable cost: losing sight of oneself. In response to the polarized views surrounding maternity, several authors have employed different writing techniques to illustrate the mother-child dynamic. Through the examination of three narratives, spanning fiction and non-fiction, one is able to better define maternity and the corresponding female gaze in both symbolic and universal terms.