The Kitchen God's Wife

In the novel The Kitchen God’s Wife, Amy Tan shows the complexity of a distance relationship through the character Pearl Louie. Pearl is the daughter of Winnie Louie. She is a Chinese-American born, raised in a family that practice the Chinese customs. In the beginning of the novel the readers learn that Pearl and Winnie are not close. During Bao-bao engagement party, Pearl wonders to herself the reason behind the distanced relationship between her mom and herself: “I think of the enormous distance that separates us and makes us unable to share the most important matters of our life”(34). This quote indicates to the readers that the mother-daughter relationship is far apart with Pearl wanting to live a normal life as possible with her American

Winnie Louie known is also known as Jiang Weili in China is a Chinese immigrant. At the beginning of the novel the readers see Winnie as a strong, self-determined woman. Although as the readers gets to the middle of the novel, Winnie reveals to Pearl that her mother abandoned her when she was six years old; consequently seeing the shame of the event through Winnie’s eyes, Winnie’s father sent her to live with his brother and his two wives. Ever since Winnie’s mom left her, Winnie still recalls the memories of her, she states, “Over the years, I tried to remember her face, the words she said, the things we did together. I remember her ten thousand different ways”(105). This quote signifies that Winnie has not lost touch with the memories of her mother. Winnie remembers the earliest memories between herself, and her mother before her mother left her. A memory Winnie tells Pearl of is, when Winnie was young she loved English biscuits, so when she would ask her mother to have some, her mother would not hesitate to give her, or they would go to a place where her mom would buy her the best American ice cream sundae. Despite the fact, Winnie and her mother relationship lasted momentarily, it took a major impact in her life, and made her become the attentive mother she is towards