Food Imagery in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife

Abstract

In The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife, Amy Tan lists food items and portrays meals and parties from time to time. The texts provide adequate evidences to support the argument that Tan does not attempt to display food only. Food imagery has a three-fold purpose. First, food references help enrich the portrayal of characters._x000D_ Second, activities concerning food, such as eating and cooking, symbolize power relations between man and woman, or between mother and daughter. Third, Tan’s treatment of Chinese cookery shows how a Chinese American daughter gazes her mother’s culture. It also indicates the daughter’s ambiguous cultural identity.