The Kitchen God's Wife, by Amy Tan

 

Characters
Louies	Kwongs
Jiang Sao-yen - father   Winnie – second narrator Sent to live with Aunt and Uncle Peanut – cousin   Wen Fu – first husband Mochou – stillborn first child Yiku – daughter, died when Wen Fu didn’t want doctor to stop playing cards to care for her Danru – son, deceased   Min - concubine   Jimmy Louie – second husband, deceased   Pearl Louie Brandt – daughter with Wen Fu, MS, first narrator Phil – husband Tessa and Cleo – children   Samuel – son   San Ma and Wu Ma – raised Winnie	Hulan “Auntie Helen” Jiaguo - husband Uncle Henry - husband   Mary Chou – daughter Doug - husband Jennifer and Michael - children   Frank   Roger ”Bao-bao” Mimi Wong – fiancé   Grand Auntie Du
Others
Wan Betty “Beautiful Betty” – telegraph operator, helped arrange divorce from Wan Fu   Little Yu’s Mother – helped women out of bad marriages

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from paperback edition, 22^nd printing.

1.       The author switched narrators four times:  Pearl first, then switched to Winnie on page 61, Pearl on 397, and finally Winnie on 411?  Did this approach add to the story?  Did it take you a while to figure out what happened? 

2.       Pearl did not tell her mother, Winnie, that she had MS.  Pearl said the reason as that she did not her to worry, but Aunt Helen said, “This is her right to worry…She is your mother” (page 36).   Do you think Pearl was right not to tell Winnie?

3.       Discuss the role of women in a marriage.  When she was getting married, Winnie’s father told her, “From now on you must consider what your husband’s opinions are.  Yours do not matter so much anymore” (page 145).  Later, when she was in the hospital after having Yiku and Wan Fu was acting terribly, she said, “But that was how I was raised – never criticize men to the society they ruled” (page 257).

4.       Discuss the concept of taonan, “It means terrible danger is coming, not just to you but to many people, so everyone is watching out only for himself” (page 207).   When the Japanese planes dropped sheets of paper with propaganda about the good treatment the Chinese will receive from them, the narrator said that on that day the “fear sickness” spread and “everyone became a different person.  You don’t know such a person exists inside of you until you become taonan” (page 215).  Why did the people have this reaction?

5.       In 1941 Winnie remembered a common saying in China, “If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude” (page 284).  She did this in regards to her marriage.  At the same Hulan began to eat more and gain weight.  Winnie thought, “when she looked at the misery in other people, she saw what she once was – and what she still might be” (page 285).  How did the characters in the novel change their attitude throughout the story?  Is this good advice?

6.       After the war when Winnie and her family returned to her father’s home, she discovered her father’s businesses ruined and her father ill.  Do you think he cooperated with the Japanese or did they take advantage of him because he was ill?   On page 326 the author wrote “he had already had a stroke when the Japanese took over his businesses.”  Were the events his fault?

7.       Superstitions played a big part in the Chinese culture. For example, when Winnie dropped a pair of scissors and they landed point down, she blamed that bad fortune on the death of her baby.  Later at the market, she knocked over a table full of scissors and that was immediately followed by Wan Fu’s accident.  Do you recall any other examples from the novel?

8.       The characters kept many secrets in the novel.  How would the story have changed if they had been told?

a.       Pearl did not tell her mother she had MS.

b.       Winnie did not tell Pearl that her father was Wen Fu.

c.       Winnie and Helen were not really sisters-in-law (page 72).

d.       Winnie’s father knew negative things about the Wen family but let Winnie marry Wen Fu anyhow.

9.       Did you like the author’s use of foreshadowing?  For example:

a.       Page 188 “I will tell you about that later.”

b.       Page 219 “Any now I will tell you how we escaped with our lives and didn’t even know it.”

c.       Page 391 “Can you blame me for what happened after that?”

10.   The book was first published in 1991 and my book is the 22^nd printing.  Why has it remained popular for so long?