Women Writers
Dr. Ramirez
Amy Tan's Kitchen God's Wife,
Chapters 16-20
How does the end of the war change
things for Winnie and her family?
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By this point in the text, Mochou and
Yiku have died.
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Winnie has given birth to Danru "Nonchalance"
and doesn't want to expect too much happiness from him.
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Relations between Winnie and Wen Fu
continue to deteriorate:
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He takes on a concubine, Min, but Winnie
actually likes her.
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Winnie tries to divorce Wen Fu, but
he rips up the paper she has written.
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Winnie then becomes pregnant for the
fourth, fifth, and sixth time--all those pregnancies end
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Helen reflects on her own youth and
recalls her family's poverty; this makes her want to eat more
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She has gone through life seeing things
only vaguely, and when she tries on glasses, the world comes into focus.
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Still, Helen can't read very well and
she asks Winnie to read her letter from Jiaguo; Winnie discovers her secret
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In the Victory Dance of 1941, Winnie
meets Jimmy Louie who speaks Mandarin as well as English
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Wen Fu is furious about Winnie dancing
with an American and forces her to write and sign a divorce paper; but
she will lose her son.
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He then rapes her as she has "lost
the privileges of a wife"
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The Yin and Yang chapter has a complement
in the Weak and Strong chapter; this part of the narrative reveals Winnie's
place in between hope and despair
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W.W.II ends and Winnie leaves for Shanghai;
she leaves Helen with sadness after their 8 years of friendship and hardship
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Danru is 6 years old by the end of
Chapter 20.
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Winnie and Wen Fu live with Winnie's
father, but he had cooperated with the Japanese during the war, so he is
on edge.
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Her father has also suffered a stroke
leaving him unable to act
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Peanut has left her marriage and become
a communist, giving up material luxuries
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Winnie and Jimmy Louie meet after the
War in Shanghai; hope finally emerges in Winnie's life; this is a turning
point