The Bonesetter's Daughter

The Bonesetter's Daughter is written by Amy Tan it was published in 2001 and it is a historical fiction.



Author Biographical Information
Amy Tan is the athor of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Moon Lady and the Chinese Siamese Cat. Her essays and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and her work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.

Setting: Historical Information
The setting of The Bonesetter's Daughter takes place in 1998 in San Francisco and apparently Amy Tan live in San Francisco with her husband

Genre
An historical fiction blends with actual facts with fiction. Which fiction is based off of the author's imagination.

Plot Summary
Ruth is a sufficient woman who makes her living as a ghostwriter for self-help books. Ruth lives with her long term boyfriend, Art Karmen, she acts as a stepmother to Art's teenage daughters, Dory and Fia. LuLing, Ruth's mother, has a memory malfunction... she really doesnt remember anything clearly. So Ruth is trying to juggle betwenn her mother illness, her job, and her relationship. Ruth trys to understand her mother and her strange behavior during Ruth's childhood. Then comes LuLings autobiography where it describes that even though LuLing is the oldest in her family, her mother favors her younger sister, GaoLing, which leaves Precious Auntie completely devotrd to caring for LuLing. LuLing then tells about Precious Auntie childhood as a bonesetter. After the death of Precious Auntie, LuLing learns that Precious Auntie is in fact her mother and LuLing is sent to an orphange where she meets her first husband. A few years later the two sisters immigrated to American seperately and married a pair of brothers. LuLing second husband dies from a hit and run accident when Ruth was two years old. When Ruth learbs the details of her mother's past, she gains an understanding of LuLing and her behavior. The answer to both of the women's problems is revealed when LuLing story is totally told

Characters

 * Ruth Young - Ruth is the main protagonist. She is significant because she learns about her mother’s past which allows her to understand her mother better which also helps resolve both of their problems. Ruth is strong-willed and hard-working.
 * LuLing Young - She is Ruth’s mother in a way she is a protagonist because her childhood story is important. LuLing is the daughter of Precious Auntie and GaoLing is LuLing half-sister. LuLing is important because without her getting her memory loss and getting sent away to live with GaoLing Ruth would have never went through her mother things and found her mother’s ‘journal’. LuLing personality is that she has suicidal thoughts always saying you wish I was dead and she also believes in curses.
 * Precious Auntie - Precious Auntie is LuLing’s mother. She is significant because if she never told LuLing how the dragons bones she has been using to cure people where from her old ancestor and since they have disturbed his remains he has set a curse on their whole family then LuLing wouldn’t have believe in curses as much as she did. Precious Auntie is a smart and independent woman, also her feet were not bounded
 * GaoLing Young - GaoLing is LuLing’s half-sister (but she doesn’t really know that) She is significant because she took LuLing in because her Alzheimer’s was getting worse. She also married the other Young brother who became a dentist and because the older brother died they inherited the riches.
 * Art - Art is Ruth’s boyfriend they live together with his two kids Dory and Fia. Art is significant to Ruth because he can deal with how she make things difficult then it really needs to be. Art is an intelligent man
 * Dory & Fia - Dory and Fia are Art’s daughters. They both kinda make it hard for Ruth a little bit and they don’t like it when LuLing and Ruth talk in mandarin around them because they find it rude. Dory and Fia are athletic and rebellious.
 * Great-Granny - Great-granny is the mother of GaoLing’s mother. She is significant because she forced GaoLing’s mother to claim LuLing as her own and she also made sure the Precious Auntie wasn’t able to be kicked out of the house or be abandoned.
 * Chang - Chang was the coffinmaker. He is significant because he made the driver believe he was the famous Mongol Bandit and he killed Precious Auntie father and stole Precious Auntie dowry, the dragon bones. Also because of Chang, Hu Sun died.
 * Hu Sun - Hu Sun is the father of LuLing and is the dead husband of Precious Auntie. He is significant because of his death he went to his mother in her dreams and said how they couldn’t abandon Precious Auntie or LuLing
 * Wendy - Wendy is Ruth’s best friend ever since childhood. She is significant because she was always there for Ruth when she needed whether it had to be about her job or about Art’s ex-wife.

Author's Style
Tan uses foreshadowing and her usage of diction varies among the characters because of their education and background. With Tan use of foreshadowing she takes us way back on the timeline from when Ruth was a child and when LuLing was a child for the audience to have a better understanding of their life. With Tan's use of diction it varies among a characters background and their education. Like for LuLing as an example her english is very poor if anything is asked to her in english she gets confused on what they are asking her.

Setting
The setting of the present view of the book is in San Francisco, where Ruth lives with Art. Through the flashbacks of Ruth childhood it the setting changes to numerous of places. When the flashbacks are about LuLing or Precious Auntie childhood the setting is at small town in China called the Immortal Heart.

Themes

 * Mother and daughter relationship clash because of different backgrounds - Both Ruth has to understand LuLing’s background or her life story to better understand her mother better to know why she does the things she do. This theme is also shown through the relationship between LuLing and Precious Auntie and how LuLing treated her as pretty badly but once LuLing knew about her mother’s past she understood Precious Auntie way much better.

Significance of the Opening/Closing Scenes
The Significance of the opening scene shows us the how unstable Ruth and LuLing relationship is, how they are always in disagreement things they just don’t seem to understand each other. LuLing thinks Ruth wants her dead and Ruth thinks her mother is crazy. The Significance of the closing scene shows how Ruth and LuLing are able to come to a better understanding about each other.

Memorable Quotes
"That was how dishonest and betray started, not in big lies in small secrets." This quote means to always be honesy no matter how big or small the secret may be you should be honesy and tell the truth. "After all, Bao Bumo says, what is the past but we choose to remember." This quote means that the past can be what we choose to remember and you can block out the events and people you don't want to remeber. "You can have pride in what you do each day, but not arrogance in what you were born in." This quote means how some people will have pride in what they are doing like how successful they have become. But that they should also acknowledge their background.