Comparing the Theme of Abandonment in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club and Kitchen God's Wife

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Theme of Abandonment in Kitchen God's Wife and Joy Luck Club

One of the themes included in both The Kitchen God's Wife and The Joy Luck Club is that of abandonment. In The Kitchen God's Wife, the character of Winnie Louie is abandoned by her mother when she was a young child. In The Joy Luck Club, Suyuan Woo has to abandon her twin daughters on the road as she is escaping war-torn China.

In The Joy Luck Club, Suyuan Woo is forced to abandon her twin daughters at the side of the road in a desperate act to give them a chance to live. Throughout her life she is haunted by this memory:

When the road grew quiet, she tore open the lining of her dress, and stuffed jewelry under the shirt of one baby and money under the other. She reached into her pocket and drew out the photos of her father and mother, the picture of herself and her husband on their wedding day. And she wrote on the back of each the names of the babies and this same message: 'Please care for these babies with the money and valuables provided. When it is safe to come, if you bring them to Shanghai, 9...

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