Culture, Relationship, & Courage

In The Kitchen God's Wife, by Amy Tan, the primary character, Jiang Weili, develops from a self-sacrificing and insecure person to a dependent, self-assuring, independent, and strong person. These developments occur amidst wartime China, where she not only had to overcome the boundaries set by her culture and the society around her, but she also had to balance this struggle with that of being in a politically unstable country. Thus, her inner emotional struggles were infused with the outer struggles of her country.

Jiang Weili was born in 1918 into a wealthy family in Shanghai, China. Throughout her entire life, she tried to free herself of the burden of being an abandoned child at age six by her mother and subsequently her father, a battered wife during pre-Communist and post-Communist China, and a mother to three dead children. She becomes a mother terminating unwanted pregnancies through abortion and a jailed prisoner. As her marriage begins to deteriorate and her experiences of loss and pain become more traumatic, Weili discovers her inner strengths and identifies her own needs. Later, she becomes a runaway wife; she flies to Amer

Weili loved her children, Mochu, Yiku and Danru; they were her sources of joy and hope. Sometimes, they were all that kept her from giving up and ending the misery for good. She always kept the hope of escaping into a new and better life during the years of abuse and oppression. In a way, her children, up until Danru, were her reasons to live and to get a better life. Having looked for escape from all her pain, Weili realized that she had to rely on her inner strengths to escape her melancholy life and perverse marriage. Weili learns to survive and make her life better. She emerges as a self-motivated and strong woman, who was determined to get her freedom from Confucianism and a psychotic man. She developed the courage needed that allowed her to leave and put an end to her pain.

hungry to feed his own power."(325) The fact that she did not blame herself, indicated considerable psychological growth and courage for Weili.

"His tone sounded so sincere, yet his face was teasing...He was charming. He was raised in a good family, he was elegant, a person you did not have to look down on. I admired Wen Fu...He was so bold, so clever, funny, and daring." (157) It is hard to believe that it was Weili who said these words. When Weili found out about the marriage proposal, she did not know how to react; she did not say yes, nor did she say no. It was not her opinion, because it was not her choice. If someone were to ask her, she would have responded: "it was like being told I had won a big prize. And it was also like being told my head was going to be chopped off. Something between those two feelings." (167) She did not love Wen Fu, even before they got married, but the idea of getting married brought her happiness. She was positive that her life was changing for the better, and her happiness would never stop.

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Approximate Word count = 1620
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)