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
Kai Jing and LuLing have sex for the first time that summer. They meet in an abandoned storage room, and LuLing feels no shame for their “forbidden joy.” Afterward, Kai Jing feels regret for not having waited until they were married. Hearing him speak of marriage makes LuLing shriek with delight. When LuLing arrives at the main hall for breakfast the next day, everyone looks grim and mutters in hushed voices. Kai Jing informs LuLing that the Japanese are nearby Peking and that war is imminent. Sister Yu tells her the Japanese have captured the Marco Polo bridge.
It's a common pattern for LuLing’s moments of joy to be followed by moments of tragedy or misfortune. That the Japanese invasion of Peking follows her happy evening with Kai Jing is evidence, to LuLing, that Precious Auntie’s curse persists and will follow her wherever she goes. LuLing finds ways to explain unrelated events (like war) with superstitious logic to confirm her belief that she is cursed and must suffer. The incident with the bridge Sister Yu mentions refers to the Marco Polo bridge incident, which was a battle between the Japanese Imperial Army and the Chinese National Revolutionary Army that occurred in 1937. It was the latest in a series of battle that began after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, and it marked the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Themes
Suddenly, the hall goes quiet. A woman stands in the doorway and asks for LuLing. It takes LuLing a moment before she recognizes GaoLing. The sisters embrace and dance with joy. LuLing realizes she hasn’t heard from her sister since she wrote the letter five years ago. LuLing fixes her sister a meal, and GaoLing fills her in on her life. She and Fu Nan, her husband, have been living in Peking. They have no children. The Changs now own the ink business. First Brother received orders to fight with the Nationalists, and Second Brother ran off to fight with the Communists. Mother’s hair has gone completely white, and she believes that Great-Granny’s voice is haunting her. Although the Catcher of the Ghosts has since been revealed to be a fraud, Precious Auntie’s ghost hasn’t returned.
That the Catcher of Ghosts is revealed to be a fraud suggests that the Lius' (and LuLing’s) fear of ghosts and curses are merely superstition and have no basis in reality. Despite this, they continue to uphold the spiritual beliefs that enable them to make sense of their situations and ascribe meaning to the misfortunes that befall them. On another note, GaoLing makes good on her promise to always see LuLing as a sister by tracking her down at the orphanage.
Themes
GaoLing continues, explaining how she managed to find her way to the orphanage. Fu Nan, who is an opium addict, ordered her to go to Immortal Heart to demand more money from her family. Her train went as far as Wanping before Japanese forces intercepted it. GaoLing heard gunshots. Realizing she might die anyway, she decided to take her chances and run. The soldiers initially chased after her, but she somehow evaded capture. GaoLing walked for what felt like 12 hours before eventually finding her way to the orphanage. She asks LuLing what she should do and contemplates letting her horrible husband believe she’s been killed. LuLing insists that GaoLing stays with her.
That GaoLing risks her life by running away from her husband to track down and go to LuLing, nearly avoiding capture by enemy soldiers in the process, shows her dedication to her sister. GaoLing isn’t blindly loyal to her family and demonstrates that she is a more complex, noble character than the novel has previously established. She demonstrates integrity and a clear sense of morality by being loyal to LuLing.
Themes
Sister Yu initially objects to GaoLing staying there. She says that her own sister was married to an opium addict who bought drugs instead of paying for medical treatments, ultimately resulting in her death. LuLing can’t believe that Sister Yu has again managed to claim her own suffering is worse than everyone else’s.
Sister Yu’s personal traumas leave her less sympathetic to others’ suffering. This is similar to the harsh, outwardly unaffectionate demeanor LuLing adopts when she becomes a mother to Ruth later on.
Themes
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Later, LuLing returns to her room to find GaoLing and Sister Yu in the midst of what appears to be a fiery argument. Eventually, LuLing realizes they’re competing to see who can name the worst insult to give to the evil people who have wronged them throughout their lives. Later, GaoLing tells LuLing that Sister Yu is clever and entertaining. The next day, LuLing finds the women sitting in the teacher’s dining room together, discussing Sister Yu’s dead sister. Sister Yu expresses remorse that her sister hadn’t learned to assert her worth while she was alive. It’s for this reason that she sympathizes with the Communists, who have no patience for worshipping the past and believe in progress.
GaoLing and Sister Yu eventually become friends, bonding over the hardships they have endured throughout their lives. Their game of competing to see who can come up with the worst insult for those who have harmed them is comical, but it also makes the deeper point that these women bond over their ability to remain resilient and empowered in the face of adversity. Insulting their transgressors enables them to reclaim ownership of their agency and author their own lives.
Themes
A few days later, LuLing walks in on GaoLing and Sister Yu hunched over a letter from the “Japanese Provisional Military Police,” addressed to Chang Fu Nan, informing him of his wife’s arrest. The letter claims that GaoLing confessed to the Japanese that she and her husband are both spies, and that the Japanese will be traveling to Chang Fu Nan’s house to interrogate him. Sister Yu boasts that she wrote the words. GaoLing adds that she carved the official Japanese seal. LuLing remarks on the realistic characteristic of the letter and commends their efforts, though she worries what GaoLing’s parents will think once Chang Fu Nan informs them of GaoLing’s “capture.” GaoLing ensures LuLing she plans to visit her parents once the roads are safer to travel.
GaoLing and Sister Yu send the phony letter to Fu Nan to ensure that he doesn’t go looking for GaoLing, and to torture him by making him fear (incorrectly) that the Japanese are planning to accost and imprison him. It’s particularly significant that they use a letter to manipulate Fu Nan. Writing empowers the women and enables them to fight back against a man who has harmed GaoLing. It lets them seize control of the narrative.
Themes
GaoLing visits home next week. When she returns to the orphanage a month later to begin work as Sister Yu’s assistant, she informs LuLing and Sister Yu that Fu Nan told nobody about the letter and ran off to join the army instead. She also informs her parents about LuLing’s employment as a teacher and upcoming marriage to an intellectual, which made them very proud.
GaoLing and Sister Yu’s letter has its intended effect: without laying a hand on Fu Nan, they manipulate him into volunteering to join the army out of fear that the Japanese will capture him if he remains at home. They thus exact revenge against Fu Nan and his family’s greed and cruelty by using their words.
Themes
That winter, LuLing has a Chinese and an American wedding. She invites Mother and Father to the Chinese ceremony to be polite. She hopes they won’t come, but they do, bringing many extended family members with them. Sister Yu thinks it’s rude of the family to abandon LuLing at the orphanage and only return to take advantage of her wedding feast years later. Seeing her family confuses LuLing, and she can’t decide if she’s happy, sad, or angry. Two scientists, Dong and Chau, attend the wedding, as well. Since the war began, it’s too dangerous to work in the quarry, and most scientists have fled to Peking. Kai Jing, Dong, and Chai are among the handful who remained behind to protect the quarry from the Japanese and the Communists.
Mother and Father only care about LuLing if they stand to benefit from her. They attend her wedding because LuLing’s marriage to a reputable scientist lends her social credibility she didn’t have when she was only an illegitimate, orphaned child. When she had no status, she was a burden and curse to them. Now that she has a more honorable reputation, though, they decide she’s worth having in their lives. Their attendance might also be an attempt on their part to rewrite the past, trying to erase their cruel treatment of LuLing. On another note, LuLing likely has good reason to be apprehensive about Kai Jing’s work in the quarry, given what readers know about his death. It’s possible his work there somehow leads to his tragic end.
Themes
After their wedding ceremony, Kai Jing and LuLing retreat to their bedchamber—the same abandoned storeroom they’d gone to the first night they were together. This time, though, the students have painted the walls red and gold and pushed the statues to the side. LuLing and her husband enjoy their first free, sanctioned night together.
Once more, the novel demonstrates how Precious Auntie’s sacrifice enables LuLing to live the freer, happier life she never had the chance to lead. Precious Auntie’s romance with Baby Uncle was cut short before she could marry him. But LuLing can now experience love because Precious Auntie instilled in her a sense of resilience and independence, which has ultimately enabled her to survive the orphanage, thrive as a teacher, and enter into a loving relationship.
Themes
The next day, the newlyweds visit their in-laws. Teacher Pan laughs when LuLing visits his living quarters, serves him tea, and call him “Baba.” Next, Kai Jing and LuLing carry a framed picture of Precious Auntie to an altar, pour her tea, and light incense. LuLing feels a sudden, cold chill and wonders if the family curse has returned, since the dragon bones were never brought back to the Monkey’s Jaw. Later, Kai Jing informs LuLing that she needn’t worry, because there’s no such thing as curses; Precious Auntie only believed in them because she wasn’t exposed to new ideas, such as science. Kai Jing tells her that the bad things in her life happened for no reason at all—not because of a curse. LuLing loves Kai Jing and tries to take his advice to heart.
This scene is important in showing the loving, fulfilling family LuLing finds during her years at the orphanage. As an adult woman, she chooses to ignore all the love and good fortune she enjoyed in her younger years, seeing only the things she lost and fixating on those to feed her shame and perpetuate her belief that she is cursed and fated to be unhappy for the rest of her life. Kai Jing tries to dissuade LuLing from letting superstition rule her life. While he sees how important Precious Auntie’s wisdom is to LuLing, he also recognizes the ways this wisdom ends up harming her, since it makes her feel that the bad things that happen to her are somehow her fault. In reality, though, sometimes tragedy strikes for no reason at all.
Themes
After the Japanese attack the Mouth of the Mountain, GaoLing and LuLing climb to the hilltop when they hear gunfire to see from which direction the explosions originate. Every night, GaoLing ensures her that the Japanese will never win here, since they are unaccustomed to fighting in the mountains. Meanwhile, vendors sneak past the barricades to sell their goods to the people who live up the mountain. GaoLing, LuLing, and Kai Jing bring the delicacies they buy to Teacher Pan’s sitting room in the evenings. Sister Yu, Dong, and Chau join them, and Teacher Pan plays records on his phonograph. LuLing remembers these nights as happy times.
One major difference between GaoLing and LuLing is GaoLing’s optimism. GaoLing tries to imagine ways in which favorable outcomes are possible (the Japanese won’t attack them because they are unaccustomed to fighting in the mountains) whereas LuLing constantly imagines worst-case scenarios. Similarly, GaoLing’s view of the world is more practical than LuLing’s, which is ruled by superstition.
Themes
By winter, they receive news that the Communist soldiers are falling ill and dying from disease. Fewer Communist troops have allowed the Japanese to venture deeper into the hills and closer to the orphanage. Now, it’s no longer safe to walk along the ridge road. Kai Jing and the other scientists continue to go to the quarry despite the heightened threat. Their trips make LuLing sick with worry.
More than the actual violence of war, LuLing fears for Kai Jing because she remains convinced that Precious Auntie’s curse prohibits her from experiencing happiness. To her mind, then, it’s only a matter of time before something happens to destroy her happy life with Kai Jing.
Themes
When Kai Jing isn’t in the quarry, he teaches the girls at the orphanage. One day, he teaches them about evolution: how Peking Man learned to stand upright, walk, and speak. When one girl asks what language Peking Man spoke, Kai Jing tells her nobody can know for sure, since “you cannot leave behind spoken words.”
Kai Jing’s remark about Peking Man underscores the essential role writing plays in passing down the customs and beliefs of the past. The memory of spoken words fades with time because there is nothing tangible that exists for people to remember them by.
Themes
Later that night, in bed next to Kai Jing, LuLing wonders what the first spoken word might have been. She decides it must have been “ma,” for “that was the only word the baby needed.”
LuLing’s theory about the first spoken word emphasizes the central role that mothers play in the book. It also underscores her sense of loss: after Precious Auntie’s death, LuLing no longer has the only thing she needs. For this reason, the death is a wound that will never heal for her.
Themes
That spring, while the students are rehearsing a scene from The Merchant of Venice, Teacher Pan bursts into the main hall and shouts that the Communists have captured Kai Jing and his fellow scientists. Teacher Pan and the scientists had gone down to the quarry. When they spotted soldiers at the bottom, they were initially unworried, since the soldiers were Communists, not Japanese. However, the soldiers criticized the scientists for “preserv[ing] the past” and ordered them to join their forces. The soldiers would have taken Teacher Pan, too, but they likely figured there wasn’t much value in bringing on a nearly blind old man.
The Communists are critical of “preserv[ing] the past” because it implicitly upholds systems and values of inequality that were standard features of old ways of life. Furthermore, fixating on the past takes energy away from working toward a better, more equal future. This is the opposite of LuLing’s stance: she is insistent on “preserv[ing] the past” and, in turn, almost proves the Communists right, since her commitment to old customs and beliefs inhibit her from living her fullest life. At the same time, the Communists’ capture of Kai Jing reinforces LuLing’s views on superstition: finally, the curse has acted against LuLing and destroyed her happiness by taking her husband from her.
Themes
Over the next two months, there is no word about Kai Jing and his men. LuLing grows thin and frail, and GaoLing has to force her to eat. She becomes convinced that Precious Auntie’s curse enabled the soldiers to take Kai Jing. Meanwhile, Miss Grutoff and Miss Towler refuse to let the girls go outside the compound, having heard stories of Japanese soldiers raping young girls. These days, much of the fighting occurs in the surrounding hills.
Kai Jing and his fellow scientists knowingly put their lives in danger by venturing into a war zone to do work in the quarry, so it’s perfectly logical (albeit tragic) that they were finally captured. However, LuLing’s attachment to Precious Auntie’s superstitious beliefs prevents her from seeing the capture objectively, and she can only reason that the capture is evidence of her curse.
Themes
Two months after Kai Jing’s capture, he, Dong, and Chau return to the orphanage. LuLing runs to him, and they passionately embrace. Kai Jing is thin, and his eyes appear blank. He tells everyone that the Japanese have taken over the surrounding hills and will come looking for them. Later on, Kai Jing and LuLing retreat to their bedchamber. Kai Jing holds LuLing and reminds her that there is no curse.
Kai Jing sees himself as a casualty of war and circumstance. His pragmatic view of the world is harder for LuLing to accept in light of the near-certain likelihood of his recapture by Japanese forces.
Themes
That evening, the Japanese come for Kai Jing, Dong, and Chau. Miss Grutoff bravely attempts to stop the soldiers from entering the orphanage, but they ignore her. Kai Jing, Dong, and Chau turn themselves in. A few days later, LuLing encounters GaoLing weeping in the main hall. GaoLing explains that the Japanese questioned the men around the clock about the Communists’ activities. When the men refused to confess, the Japanese lined them up and shot them with bayonets.
Kai Jing’s execution validates LuLing’s superstitious belief that she is fated to have an unhappy life.
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