An Analysis Of The Narrative Strategies In Amy Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife

On the publication of her first novel The Job Luck Club (1989), Amy Tan and herworks have become a heated topic in the research of Asian American literature. Thepresentation of Amy Tan’s second novel, The Kitchen God’s Wife (1991) establishesher important place in American mainstream literary circle. Up to now, lots ofscholars have made fruitful researches on many facets of The Kitchen God’s Wife fromvarious perspectives including feminism, the conflicts between two cultures, thesearch for identity and Chinese dietary culture. This thesis intends to study it from theperspective of narratology based on Genette’s narrative theory and analyzes thenarrative time, focalization and narrative discourse in order to appreciate The KitchenGod’s Wife form a distinctive way. Firstly, the thesis analyzes the dislocated time,including time order, time duration and time frequency and finds that there are twoliners of time: one is the contemporary America in daughter Pearl’s narrative and theother one is the pre-revolutionary China in Winnie’s retrospection. Secondly, thethesis analyzes the shifting internal focalization between Pearl and Winnie, anddiscovers that the intergenerational conflict has been resolved when their attitudeschanged towards each other. Thirdly, the thesis analyzes the variable narrativediscourses, including narrated discourse, indirect narrated discourse and dramaticnarrated discourse, and finds that narrative discourse is an effective tool tocharacterize and express the inner thoughts of the character. Through the detailedanalysis of the narrative strategies of Amy Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife, the thesiscomes to a conclusion that narrative can achieve unexpected effects throughingeniously design. The vernacular language of Winnie and Pearl shortens thedistance between the reader and they know the secrets of Winnie simultaneously withPearl. Finally Mother and daughter reconcile with each other after confession. Theirnarrative enables the reader to understand the psychological activities of the characterand deepens the theme of the novel, which is that fate can be changed by one’s will,just like Winnie’s courageous pursuit of her happiness. The Kitchen God’s Wife also indicates that communication is an effective way to resolve the conflicts between twogenerations and cultures.