Pearl's father, or at least the man she always knew as her father is not her biological father and she realizes through this story that her mother made choices in life that caused her great pain but later found someone who would love Pearl as his own and raise her as such (Tan, 2006).
After hearing her mother's life story Pearl gains a tremendous respect for what her mother has gone through and a renewed sense of appreciation for her own husband and children.
It is interesting to note that through it all her mother holds onto her Chinese heritage and customs. One might think that after all the abuse and sadness that Winnie suffered at the hands of her first husband she would want to move as far away as possible from that culture, but instead she seems stuck in it, unable to break free. At the same time however, throughout the story one cannot help but wonder if part of her anger at Pearl is less about the fact that her daughter does not hold to the old customs but about the fact that Pearl is able to adapt to America's customs and not worry about the customs of the old country. There may be an underlying resentment there that is not fully explored in the book.
While their lives and ideas seem to be completely different,...
Through her mother's story, Pearl learns why her mother acts as she does. She also learns what an amazing woman she is and how proud she is to have her as a mother. Most important, she realizes that the time has indeed come to break her silence and tell Winnie about her MS. Pearl's admission gives Winnie the opportunity to once again help her daughter, but this time they will
Huntley 16) The imagination and the old standards and emphasis on luck and fate either good or bad drives the narrative account of Pearl's mother in the work, as she navigates through the traditions of the culture of women plotting to alter their own fates and in so doing changing the fate of others. "Tan first presents in the Kitchen God's Wife the indigenous informants "Winnie Louie, Helen (or Hulan), and
Chapter 3 elucidated clearly on this point, highlighting Weili's tendency to think of a setback once a solution emerges from a problem; these series of setbacks resulted to her inability to decide for herself, for in all of these setbacks, another person's welfare was put into consideration, rather than Weili's own welfare (70-1). Adams (2003) considered Weili's psyche as a response to her previous past, specifically, when she was raped
..I ask you, isn't that fate meant to be?" Now, Pearl realizes that Winnie's fatalism is not all negative. That, too, she has not understood about her mother and what keeps her going. Pearl recognizes the strength never left her mother. For the sake of her daughter, she kept on going. Her greatest fault: becoming disillusioned with life. But now, she can perhaps work on those feelings, because she will
Reading between the lines it can be understood that one must not be influenced by the pressures of the environment and of the other people. All in all it can be stated that a major theme in the works of May Tan is represented by the American colonialism taking place in the contemporary world at cultural level. Just as it has been stated in the beginning of the paper, language
For Amy Tan, however, attempting, for her parents' sake, to become simultaneously Chinese and American, without compromising either culture, or herself, was a tricky balancing act. As E.D. Huntley adds: Amy Tan spent her childhood years attempting to understand, as well as to come to terms with and to reconcile, the contradictions between her ethnicity and the dominant Western culture in which she was being raised and educated. She lived the
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