The novel describes the struggle of a Chinese woman in creating a harmonious relationship between the two cultures by trying to eliminate one of them.īoth Chinese and American cultures are competing in the characters of Winnie Louie and Pearl Louie Brandt. Pearl, her daughter, is caught entangled in an ambivalent world of America and China. The novel focused on the mother, Winnie, as she has come to understand her own world and her being as an independent woman. It is about the personal recollection of Winnie Louie, a first generation Chinese woman narrator who is an immigrant to the United States. It also shows the clash between the imperial powers and the human rights abuses in the Second World War.

The novel features a Chinese woman’s endeavors and hardships in two cultures namely Chinese and American. Her fiction The Kitchen God’s Wife demonstrated the Chinese cultural legacy is challenged in their immigration. The author created dialogues between a mother and a daughter to see the generation gap they have and how this affected their relationship to each other, to their heritage, and the values they possess. Her stories of Chinese immigrants and the cultural ambiguity these immigrants have highlighted her stories.Įthnicity is a great deal in the second generation of Chinese immigrants since they are playing the games in following the American values, which is way different than the Chinese conservative traditions. Amy Tan is one of the best-known Asian American writers in the 20th century.

Author of the kitchen god's wife 1991