Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, she discusses the tension between Eastern culture and Western culture in Tan's novel.

Amy Tan's The Kitchen God's Wife has been compared in various ways to Tan's first novel, The Joy Luck Club. Both novels have garnered the praise of critics and readers, most of whom cannot help but notice the similarities between the two books. Perhaps the most obvious similarity is the theme of mother-daughter conflict as the result of Americanized daughters having so little in common with their immigrant mothers. This tension—really a tension between Eastern and Western cultures—is at the heart of The Kitchen God's Wife, in which Pearl has trouble relating to her mother, Winnie. The plot development, however, takes these two characters from...