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That, too, she has not understood about her mother and what keeps her going. Pearl recognizes the strength never left her mother. For the sake of her daughter, she kept on going. Her greatest fault: becoming disillusioned with life. But now, she can perhaps work on those feelings, because she will not be bearing them alone. She will also have Pearl's strength to help her as she becomes older.
As she tells Pearl her life story, Winnie feels so much weight being lifted off her shoulders. She first apologizes for not having told Pearl about how her grandmother abandoned her six-year-old daughter. This has to be the most difficult thing for Winnie to talk about, since she, like Pearl, did not want to admit things to herself that were too hurtful.
Finally, Winnie relates the rest of the story about the rape by Wen Fu and how Pearl was born nine months later -- something wonderful out of something so horrible. Now, because she has heard the entire story, Pearl truly understands where her mother's anger and fears come from. Now, just as well, Pearl understands why she has her own anger and fears. She also knows that the time has indeed come to tell Winnie about her MS. Pearl's admission allows Winnie help her daughter, but this time it will be something acceptable.
Later, Aunt Helen also tells a secret to Pearl, which adds levity to the book. For some time, she knew that she had a benign brain tumor. That was her way to unite the stubborn...
Winnie had been such as good friend to her that she wanted to give something back in return. This, indeed, was a special gift -- her daughter. Likewise, Pearl had the gift of her mother. "Now you are closer, mother and daughter, I can already see this." This, then is now the secret that Aunt Helen and Pearl will share, but it is a good secret -- one that will only bring good things. Pearl laughs and agrees to going to China, but is so confused she does not even know what she is agreeing to.
In the book's last scene, Winnie gives Pearl a statue for Grand Auntie Du's little altar temple. The statue stands for the once-silent and forgiving Kitchen God's Wife, who watches over women who are learning to break their silences. Now Winnie and Pearl, mother and daughter, will find that they actually do not have many differences between them. They share a love for a husband and father. They share the need to learn from and not be angry from the past. They share a future together.
References
Bloom, Harold. Amy Tan. Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House, 2001.
Huntley, E.D. Critical Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.
Lee, Ken-Fang. Cultural Translation and the Exorcist: A Reading of Kingston's and Tan's Ghost Stories. Mellus (2004). 29.2
Nelson, Emmanuel S. Asian-American Novelists: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000: 105+.
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