Secrecy and Misunderstanding
The Bonesetter’s Daughter features many characters whose lives remain secretive and mysterious, even to those who are—or who ought to be—closest to them. When LuLing Liu Young immigrates to the United States as a young woman, she leaves behind a complicated, traumatic life in China, much of which she refuses to share with her daughter, Ruth Young, who was born in the United States. Throughout Ruth’s life, LuLing makes frequent references to her nursemaid…
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Memory, Culture, and the Past
The Bonesetter’s Daughter often depicts critical personal, cultural, and familial histories as in danger of slipping away if characters fail to remember, honor, and preserve them. LuLing’s dementia diagnosis, for example, invigorates her daughter, Ruth’s, interest in her mother’s life and motivates LuLing to share her past with Ruth—something she’s purposefully concealed for all of her life. LuLing’s compromised memory thus serves as an impetus to strengthen cultural traditions and family ties. At…
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Storytelling
The Bonesetter’s Daughter is a story about stories. Specifically, it emphasizes the power of storytelling to imbue one’s experiences with authenticity and meaningfulness and the value of sharing those stories to grow and connect with others. Ruth Young (one of the protagonists) works as a ghostwriter, translating her clients’ often jumbled, incomprehensible ideas into polished, coherent stories. Ruth also descends from a long line of storytellers: several years before the novel’s present, Ruth’s mother, LuLing…
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Women’s Solidarity
Like many of Amy Tan’s books, The Bonesetter’s Daughter is, at its core, a story about mothers and daughters. More than this, however, it is a broader study in the transformative power of women’s solidarity as a bulwark against the generational trauma and social alienation that threaten women and girls—but also how a lack of solidarity can compound these issues. At certain points throughout the novel, mothers and daughters fail to accept, understand, or support…
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