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 Grand Auntie Du" in a light as unsavory..."
Ma 18) in one passage of the childhood narrative of her mother this can be seen clearly, when Pearl's mother speaks of losing her luck to Peanut, her coveted cousin, who was supposed to marry a local boy but shirked him off on Pearl's Mother and the marriage was one that greatly challenged her for years;
No I'm not being superstitious. I am only saying that's how it happened. And how can you say luck and chance are the same thing? Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward...If you don't take a chance, someone else will give you his luck. And if you get bad luck, then you need to take another chance to turn things from bad to good." (149-150)
Additionally the relationship between Helen (Hulan) and Winnie was also one that was cemented through mutuality of situation, and bad circumstances, rather than through marriage, as Pearl had been told throughout her childhood. "I met Helen maybe two weeks after we arrived in Hangchow. She was also very young, maybe eighteen, and I heard she was also newly married no, not to my brother...so you see Helen is not my sister-in-law. She is not your real auntie." (Tan 211-213) in fact all of the important characters in the life of Winnie and her daughter Pearl turn out to be different people than Pearl was told as a child and who she still as an adult believed them to be, and markedly with...
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
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
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
She finds out how it came to be that her mother moved to America and the secret is released that Winnie has been holding her entire life. 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
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now