The Role of Silence and its Influence on Female Characters in a Amy Tan’s novel The Kitchen God's Wife

Abstract

This research offers a valuable addition to the comprehension of silence that challenges the conventional perspective of interpreting silence as a manifestation of the incapability to interact or communicate with others. Drawing upon Margaret E. Montoya's views, this study examines Amy Tan's novel, The Kitchen God's Wife, to argue that silence can serve as a form of resistance against oppression or as a consequence of oppression. Within the novel, female characters possess the capacity to articulate their thoughts through language; nevertheless, they consciously choose to remain silent due to certain reasons that will be elucidated in this investigation.