The Bonesetter's Daughter Summary
The Bonesetter’s Daughter is a novel about three generations of Chinese women. The novel starts off with a short prologue told in the perspective of LuLing Liu Young. LuLing is the daughter of “Precious Auntie”, a horribly disfigured nursemaid who is later revealed to be her mother, and the mother of Ruth, a “ghost-writer” who authors self-help books. Ruth lives with her boyfriend Art and his two teenage daughters, Dory and Fia in an apartment in San Francisco. She mysteriously loses her voice for several days per year around August 12. Ruth is nearly driven to the brink of exhaustion from trying to cope with everything life is throwing at her- her job, her boyfriend, her mother, as well as her past. The novel is divided into 3 parts; Part
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In part one, Ruth describes her dark and depressing past with her mother who told tales of ghosts, curses and suicides. Ruth seemingly wishes to escape her past and her mother’s volatile behavior. However, when her mother begins to show signs of dementia, Ruth goes back to relive her mother’s past through her autobiography and learns of how much her mother truly loves her. Amy Tan, the author of The Bonesetter’s Daughter, didn’t learn her mother’s true name until after her mother’s death and Ruth reflects this by not fully knowing her mother’s past before it was too late to talk to LuLing about it. Clearly, Tan wishes to emphasize the important bond that is ever-present within a family and how as Tan puts it,” A person should consider how things begin. A particular beginning results in a particular end.” p.153. In order for someone to truly understand who they are and how they got to this point, they have to understand their past and what experiences had shaped their lives before. The second theme is that of how lies can destroy even if original intents were benevolent. Ruth, as a “ghost-writer” doesn’t actually write for herself, rather she writes for other authors. In her childhood, she also symbolically wrote for Precious Auntie whenever LuLing asked her. These lies she told …show more content…
She’s filled with a deeper understanding of most of her mother’s antics when Ruth was a child, and makes it her mission to have her mother be her top priority. She goes to live with her mother to make sure she’s safe, leaving Art wondering if he did something wrong. In reality, Ruth is determined to treat her mother with the care she should have as a child, and explains this to him. To her surprise, Art agrees and supports her, even taking out the money to send her to an assisted-living residence. After he explains to her that it is not a nursing home and will treat her like a human being, as well as give her the proper care, they still must trick her into living there as they know the difficulty of her mother and money. This ending sequence brings back the root of their problems- lying. They’ve seen where lying lands people, even little white lies, they still insist on tricking her. However, the catch is that this is for LuLing’s benefit, not completely anyone else's. As Art admits, “I don't mean it as a condition for getting us back together or getting rid of your mother or any of that. It’s not a condition for anything,”(Tan, 367) He is genuinely supporting Ruth because he really wants to help LuLing. The only way to get her to agree to this help is by lying about it, and in this way, it’s perfectly
In part one, Ruth describes her dark and depressing past with her mother who told tales of ghosts, curses and suicides. Ruth seemingly wishes to escape her past and her mother’s volatile behavior. However, when her mother begins to show signs of dementia, Ruth goes back to relive her mother’s past through her autobiography and learns of how much her mother truly loves her. Amy Tan, the author of The Bonesetter’s Daughter, didn’t learn her mother’s true name until after her mother’s death and Ruth reflects this by not fully knowing her mother’s past before it was too late to talk to LuLing about it. Clearly, Tan wishes to emphasize the important bond that is ever-present within a family and how as Tan puts it,” A person should consider how things begin. A particular beginning results in a particular end.” p.153. In order for someone to truly understand who they are and how they got to this point, they have to understand their past and what experiences had shaped their lives before. The second theme is that of how lies can destroy even if original intents were benevolent. Ruth, as a “ghost-writer” doesn’t actually write for herself, rather she writes for other authors. In her childhood, she also symbolically wrote for Precious Auntie whenever LuLing asked her. These lies she told …show more content…
She’s filled with a deeper understanding of most of her mother’s antics when Ruth was a child, and makes it her mission to have her mother be her top priority. She goes to live with her mother to make sure she’s safe, leaving Art wondering if he did something wrong. In reality, Ruth is determined to treat her mother with the care she should have as a child, and explains this to him. To her surprise, Art agrees and supports her, even taking out the money to send her to an assisted-living residence. After he explains to her that it is not a nursing home and will treat her like a human being, as well as give her the proper care, they still must trick her into living there as they know the difficulty of her mother and money. This ending sequence brings back the root of their problems- lying. They’ve seen where lying lands people, even little white lies, they still insist on tricking her. However, the catch is that this is for LuLing’s benefit, not completely anyone else's. As Art admits, “I don't mean it as a condition for getting us back together or getting rid of your mother or any of that. It’s not a condition for anything,”(Tan, 367) He is genuinely supporting Ruth because he really wants to help LuLing. The only way to get her to agree to this help is by lying about it, and in this way, it’s perfectly