cause of his mischief, all for naught. She disappears from the story; he is rewarded with control over the fortune of everyone. The kitchen god resides in one's house, but he is not its patron. He is its watchdog and informer, with power over good and ill luck, "like a spy--FBI agent, CIA, Mafia, worse than IRS, that kind of person! And he does not give you gifts, you give him things. All year long you have to show him respect" (Tan 61).
Like the kitchen god, Wen Fu insinuates himself into Winnie's family,-and like the kitchen god he finds shelter and comfort there. Also like the god, Wen Fu is a sexual adventurer and a spendthrift who is never satisfied and who can by turns rely on and abuse a solicitous wife. And when he assumes leadership of Winnie's family, supplanting her father as head of his own household, he acts much like an informer, insinuating himself into the family secrets and behaving like a tyrant, monitoring everyone's good behavior, particularly his wife's. Winnie clearly sees herself akin to the wife of the kitchen god, like all who propitiate the god afraid to withdraw from Wen Fu for fear of the consequences, just as members of the household are afraid to stop giving the god little offerings for fear of retribution.
The narrative frame of the story concerns Winnie's weaning herself away from Wen Fu and indeed from the supposed power of the kitchen god. In the early part of the story, she explains to Pearl's children that "once you get started [offering gifts to the god], you are afraid
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