Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Bonesetter’s Daughter, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Secrecy and Misunderstanding
Memory, Culture, and the Past
Storytelling
Women’s Solidarity
Summary
Analysis
Ruth and LuLing sit in the hospital waiting room. LuLing asks about Art’s kids and gets defensive when she confuses Fia with Dory. She asks Ruth about Fu-Fu, Ruth’s cat, seemingly not remembering that Fu-Fu died a few months ago after getting attacked by a dog. It’s difficult for Ruth to think about Fu-Fu’s death, but she tries to remain composed for her mother. Meanwhile, LuLing has started to talk loudly, and other patients are beginning to stare at them. Ruth is happy when the receptionist calls them back to meet with the doctor.
Anger and aggression in response to being corrected are common symptoms of dementia. LuLing’s confusion forces Ruth to relive the painful memory of Fu-Fu’s death. Because LuLing’s confusion is likely the consequence of her (probable) dementia, it’s pointless for Ruth to correct her or explain that her words have hurt Ruth's feelings.
Themes
The nurse takes LuLing’s vitals, all of which appear normal. Dr. Huey arrives and exchanges a knowing look with Ruth, who updated him on LuLing’s situation before they arrived. Dr. Huey’s Mandarin isn’t great, so he communicates with LuLing in English. Dr. Huey asks LuLing a series of questions to test her memory, many of which she fails to answer correctly. Inwardly, Ruth convinces herself that LuLing’s poor English has caused her confusion, not a poor memory, and longs to defend her mother. However, she remains silent. Finally, LuLing claims to have witnessed O.J. Simpson kill his wife. After this, Dr. Huey asks to speak with Ruth alone while LuLing changes out of her hospital gown.
Ruth tries to rationalize LuLing’s forgetfulness because acknowledging that she will lose her mother to illness before she’s had the chance to get to know her is too painful to accept. LuLing’s story about witnessing O.J. Simpson kill his wife alludes to the infamous and highly controversial O.J. Simpson trial that took place in the 1990s. Simpson, a former professional football player, was accused (but acquitted) of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. Although LuLing’s claim is obviously false, it’s possible that some event from her past reminds her of the Simpson trial.
Themes
Dr. Huey addresses LuLing’s memory problems and tells Ruth she’ll need to bring LuLing back for future testing. Ruth tries to defend her mother, but it’s harder for her to ignore the seriousness of LuLing’s confusion. Dr. Huey says LuLing’s problem might be depression, but he fears it’s more likely something worse, such as Alzheimer’s.
LuLing’s potentially serious medical condition means Ruth will have to accept that she will always have to pull more than her fair share of the emotional burden in her relationship with her mother. Just as LuLing’s combativeness prevented her from giving Ruth the affection she needed, her dementia further inhibits her from providing Ruth with emotional stability.
Themes
At dinner that night, LuLing complains to Ruth that the fish is too salty. Meanwhile, Fia and Dory aren’t eating. When Ruth confronts them, they admit they had Burger King before dinner. In Chinese, LuLing scolds the girls for eating junk food. When Ruth tries to scold the girls about spoiling their appetites, they accuse her and LuLing of “talking like spies” in Chinese. When Art doesn’t defend Ruth, LuLing berates Ruth in Chinese, telling her that Art never bothered marrying her because he doesn’t respect her. Ruth wishes she could be mute again.
Even Dory and Fia, who are only children, can't be bothered to respect Ruth: they knowingly spoil their appetites on junk food, ensuring that they won't be able to enjoy or appreciate the dinner Ruth has prepared for them. Furthermore, Art can't be bothered to defend his partner against his daughters. Everyone takes Ruth for granted. Ruth's failure to defend herself perpetuates the lack of respect her family has for her, too. To make matters worse, Ruth can't even turn to her mother for support, since LuLing implicitly blames the disrespect on Ruth's failure to marry Art.
Themes
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Ruth remembers when she was six and playing in the schoolyard while LuLing, who worked as a teacher’s assistant, was at the other side of the yard watching the younger children. In a flashback, just as Ruth is about to tumble down the slide, her mother screams at her in Chinese to stop. The other children mock LuLing’s “gobbledy-gook-gook,” which embarrasses Ruth. In response, she screams that LuLing isn’t her mother before throwing herself headfirst down the slide. She hits the ground hard, biting her lip, hitting her nose, and breaking her arm.
This scene illustrates how Ruth grew to resent and be ashamed of her Chinese heritage: the other children made fun of LuLing’s “gobbledy-gook-gook,” which is a racist way of describing LuLing’s Chinese-English patois. Embarrassed, Ruth tried to disown her mother by pretending she didn’t know her. But then she badly injured herself, ultimately symbolizing how her rejection of LuLing and their shared Chinese heritage ended up harming her more than anything.
Themes
The accident sends Ruth into shock, and she almost feels as though she’s dead. When she tries to speak, no words come out. LuLing scolds Ruth all the way to the hospital. Still, she brags to the doctor about Ruth’s stoic response to being hurt, insisting that all the teachers and students were impressed with Ruth’s bravery. Ruth stays silent when she returns home, even as her mother desperately asks her what she can cook to make Ruth feel better. Auntie GaoLing, Uncle Edmund, and their children, Sally and Billy, come over with gifts for Ruth. Still, Ruth is silent, fearing that once she talks and shows everyone she’s okay, she’ll stop receiving special treatment from everyone.
This memory helps contextualize the accommodating personality Ruth develops as an adult. The special treatment Ruth receives after her injury renders her mute and teaches her to associate silence and submissiveness with reward and acceptance.
Themes
When Ruth finally returns to school, a special banner bearing the words “Welcome Back, Ruth!” greets her in Miss Sondegard’s classroom, and the class applauds as she walks through the door. Suddenly, even the popular girls want to be her friend, and everyone signs her cast. When LuLing arrives to pick her up, Miss Sondegard expresses concern that Ruth still hasn’t spoken. She advises LuLing to convince Ruth to start talking again, before her muteness becomes a real problem.
Ruth’s peers are more accepting of her when she is silent. In contrast, her teacher takes issue with Ruth’s silence and seems to recognize it for the faulty coping mechanism it is.
Themes
After dinner that night, LuLing gets her calligraphy supplies and writes. When she finishes her work, she offers Ruth a brush and teaches her to write her name. The lesson is slow and arduous, but Ruth eventually makes improvements. The next night, LuLing gives Ruth a tea tray filled with wet sand and a chopstick she can use to practice calligraphy without wasting so much ink and paper. Ruth enjoys drawing in the sand and begins to communicate with LuLing with her new device, writing the letters for English words in the sand to communicate with her mother. When LuLing asks Ruth what she’d like for dinner, Ruth writes B-U-R-G-E-R. LuLing laughs.
Ruth’s silence makes LuLing more patient with her, even though she’s slow to learn calligraphy. The tea tray that LuLing gives Ruth evokes the chalkboard she used to communicate with Precious Auntie. Perhaps LuLing is so happy about Ruth’s muteness because it makes her feel like she has a second chance to interact with her deceased mother.
Themes
Ruth brings the tea tray and chopstick to school the next day, fascinating her classmates when she answers the teacher’s questions by writing in the sand. Ruth soaks up the admiration. She also realizes that writing in the sand gives her a new power over LuLing. When Ruth writes that the bean curd dish LuLing has prepared for dinner that night is too salty, LuLing agrees. Ruth is shocked: her mother never asks for or respects her opinion. To Ruth’s delight, LuLing begins asking for her input about things.
Ruth’s silence makes her classmates accepting of her Chinese culture, even though they previously dismissed her cultural heritage in a racist way. While they earlier mocked LuLing’s accent, the chopstick and traditional tea tray now fascinates them. Ruth’s ability to command LuLing’s respect through the written word garners her a heightened appreciation for language and storytelling. She learns that her words can be her voice.
Themes
Ruth decides to test her luck one day and tries to ask LuLing for a dog by writing the word “Doggie” in the sand. Suddenly, LuLing’s demeanor shifts as she proclaims that her Precious Auntie has returned to her. LuLing asks “Precious Auntie” if she’s forgiven her and begins to sob. Ruth is confused. LuLing continues to plead with her deceased nursemaid, claiming that she’d rather die than continue suffering without her. She wishes she could have found her body and given her a proper burial. She asks if the curse is over. Realizing the miscommunication she’s caused, Ruth draws a random shape in the sand to get her mother to stop. By coincidence, Ruth has drawn the character for “mouth,” which LuLing interprets as a sign. Ruth wants to protest but reminds herself that she’s not supposed to be able to talk.
Doggie was Precious Auntie’s nickname for LuLing, which is why LuLing believes that Precious Auntie communicates with her from beyond the grave through Ruth’s tea-tray-writing. This scene is important because it provides additional insight into Precious Auntie’s death and LuLing’s resultant shame. The core of LuLing’s guilt stems from the fact that she didn’t honor her mother’s death and give her a proper burial. Whether this was a choice on LuLing’s part or something over which she had no power remains unknown. At any rate, this scene illustrates how profoundly guilty LuLing feels about doing wrong by her mother, and how this guilt manifests as an obsessive belief in curses, ghosts, and other superstitious beliefs.
Themes
LuLing begs Precious Auntie’s ghost to forgive her. She pleads with her to spare Ruth’s life and take her instead if she refuses to call off the curse. Ruth realizes her accident on the slide must have been the dead nursemaid trying to kill her. She drops the chopstick in shock and refuses to write. Finally, Ruth speaks, telling her mother that Precious Auntie has ended the curse and restored her voice. LuLing cries tears of relief.
LuLing believes whatever wrongs she has committed against Precious Auntie will doom Ruth’s future. In reality, though, LuLing’s fixation on curses seems to have a more significant impact on her ability to be happy than a curse itself: her superstitious anxiety breeds resentment in Ruth, who lacks sufficient context to see LuLing’s behavior as anything other than foolish and embarrassing. LuLing’s anxieties also prevent her from being able to provide Ruth with adequate emotional support. This scene even reverses Ruth’s and LuLing’s roles as child and parent, with Ruth assuming the role of the adult and reassuring LuLing.
Themes
Back in the present, Ruth drives LuLing home from dinner and realizes she hasn’t completed one task on her to-do list: calling Miriam, Art’s ex-wife, to ask if the girls can attend the family reunion dinner. Things are awkward between Ruth and Miriam. Ruth dislikes hearing about the formerly intimate life that Art and Miriam shared, though she never expresses her insecurities to Art. Wendy makes her husband, Joe, tell her everything about his past, but Ruth doesn’t feel comfortable doing this with Art.
Ruth’s childhood experiences growing up with a harsh, often disapproving mother have taught her to be guarded with her emotions. She feels threatened by Art’s close bond with Miriam because her own lingering psychological baggage prevents her from getting too close to Art herself.
Themes
LuLing asks Ruth about Fu-Fu again, and Ruth pretends the cat is still alive. She tells Ruth to be careful, recalling someone she knows whose cat was killed by a dog, Ruth swallows her pain and remains silent.
Again, LuLing forces Ruth to disregard her own emotions. Whereas LuLing's fixation on the past previously made her unable to be an affectionate, open mother to Ruth, now her (probable) illness makes her physically incapable of giving Ruth the emotional support she needs.
Themes
