My Year Of Meats Character Analysis

In My Year of Meats, the character progression of Ruth L. Ozeki’s heroine Akiko Ueno becomes increasingly evident. At the start of the novel, Ozeki portrays Akiko as a fragile woman with an abundance of personal issues, including constant abuse from her husband as she struggles with an eating disorder that renders her infertile. By the end of the novel, however, readers realize that she has overcome some of these obstacles and gained stability and happiness in her life. As soon as Ozeki introduces Akiko it can be inferred that she has an eating disorder: “When her periods stopped coming, Akiko’s doctor had told her that her ovaries were starved and weren’t producing any eggs. Akiko’s husband, Joichi, was very upset. He told her that she must put some meat on her bones…” (20.4). This is this first instance in which readers can recognize that Akiko has some emotional problems as starving oneself until she is
As he worked on the show, John had Akiko watch My American Wife! and critique it based on a variety of categories (though he would only become angry if he did not agree with her on her answers, yelling at her until she cowered in fear), in addition to cooking. “Akiko learns more than how to cook meat, as she watches ‘My American Wife.’ She sees the possibility for a whole new life opening up...” (Walker). My American Wife! gives Akiko the opportunity to meet Jane and, in turn, the ambition to leave Japan and her oppressive husband in hopes for an improved life. Without My American Wife! Akiko would never have seen that there are different kinds of people and different ways of living, such as Lara and Dyann. These two wives showed her that the marriage she had was not the only type there had to be; she did not need to be overpowered by her husband because in fact she did not need a husband at