The Bonesetter's Daughter Critical Analysis

Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter is about the relationship between mothers and daughters and the importance of understanding one’s life stories. The novel is divided into three parts, wherein the first part we meet Ruth Young and learn of her tumultuous relationship with her mother, LuLing. The second part is a memoir written by LuLing about her own childhood and the titular bonesetter’s daughter. The final part of the novel ties the three generations of women together in strong, but difficult mother-daughter relationships. It is undeniable that the relationship between each set of mother and daughter is a key point in the novel, and Ver Ann Goh asserts in her essay “Mother-Daughter Relationships In The Identity Formation Of The Daughter’s In The Bonesetter’s Daughter” that it is the mothers that form the identity of the daughters in adulthood. On the other hand, the spirit of Gu Liu Xin, the dead grandmother, threads throughout the novel, and Xiumei Pu’s, “Spirituality: A Womanist Reading Of Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter” claims that it is spirituality that forms the identity of the women in the novel. Though both critical analyses recognise the growth and influence the women in The Bonesetter’s Daughter face, Pu’s

assertion of spirituality sculpting the personality of the daughters is ultimately incorrect in comparison to Goh’s argument.
Goh recognises how the daughters suffer because of the mothers’ actions, but also points out that despite the concealment of the truth, the daughters are only able to grow into adults with the guidance of the mothers. In acknowledging both the negative and positive influences the mothers have on their respective daughters, Goh is ultimately more correct in identifying the force that shapes the daughters is in fact the relationship that is shared.
Contrary to Goh, Pu makes the claim that spirituality shapes the identities of the daughters. Pu states that the spirit of Gu Liu Xin shapes Ruth’s psyche and serves as a guide to LuLing - while not an unreasonable conclusion, this assertion undermines the effects of the mother-daughter relationships in the novel. Pu wrongly chooses to ignore the bonds forged between mother and daughter and instead focuses on spirituality as the main force in the growth of three generations of women.
Goh correctly recognises the strength of Precious Auntie and LuLing’s relationship - Precious Auntie is LuLing’s real mother and is the one that raises her despite LuLing having a separate Mother. The strength of LuLing and Precious Auntie’s relationship is shown when LuLing reveals that “hand-talk, face-talk and chalk talk were the languages [she] grew up with” (Tan 2). Precious Auntie is the one who teaches LuLing the significance of Chinese characters - without Precious Auntie, LuLing may have grown up ignorant of the greater meaning that Chinese characters have. Goh cites that “a child incorporates many aspects of the relational environment such as parental behavior into the developing self-system” (Klee qtd in Goh 26). LuLing grows up observing her mother and absorbs her mother’s traits into her personality. After Precious Auntie’s suicide - an act done in order to protect LuLing - and the execution of her husband, LuLing resolves to find a way to travel to America instead of choosing to give up. From being exposed to her mother’s resilience as a child, LuLing parallels her mother’s behaviour.
Posing a contrasting explanation, Pu asserts that ghosts (or the concept thereof) are key to the development of the novel. Pu claims that “Liu Xin [Precious Auntie] is saved [when] her husband’s ghost..[warns that if she dies]” and that LuLin would not have been born if the ghost of Liu Xin’s husband did not visit her mother-in-law (Pu 32). While this may be true, there is no evidence in the novel that suggests that the Liu family would have let Liu Xin die or prevent the birth of LuLin. After the suicide of Liu Xin, LuLing is mistreated by her stepmother causing Liu Xin to become a wronged ghost and act as a protector for LuLing. LuLing is sent away to an orphanage and under the guidance of her mother’s spirit, “develops into a mature and happy woman” (Pu 35). However, Pu fails to recognise that the bond between mother and daughter is able to transcend death - LuLing finds a photograph of her mother and cries, realising that Precious Auntie’s face, hope, knowledge and sadness are all her own.
Goh’s essay acknowledges the difference in LuLing and Ruth’s relationship compared to LuLing and Precious Auntie. Ruth and her mother’s relationship is expressed as tumultuous due to LuLing’s “bitterness and frequent threats to end her own life” (Goh 27). Ruth describes her mother’s death threats as “earthquakes” where she is “unable to keep her balance” (Tan 54). Growing up under her mother’s behaviour causes Ruth to become a reserved person who keeps her feelings to herself - her relationship with Art, her American boyfriend, suffers as he tells Ruth that she “keeps secrets inside of [her]” (Tan 387). LuLing’s despondent nature renders her unable to parent normally and this harmfully affects Ruth’s personality. Despite their less than ideal relationship, Ruth still inherits parts of her mother’s behaviour. For example, she shares her strong resolve to achieve her goals with her mother. When LuLing develops dementia, Ruth takes it upon herself to translate LuLing’s memoir telling herself that “she [will] ask her mother to tell her about her life. For once, she would ask” (Tan 168).
Pu’s essay recognises that LuLing’s way of raising Ruth reflects how LuLing herself was brought up by Liu Xin in the traditional Chinese manner. Pu asserts that the ghost of Liu Xin “serves as a lubricant smoothing the mother-daughter tension between Ruth and LuLing” and also serves as “Ruth’s internal guiding force” (Pu 17). However, Pu is incorrect as the spirit of Liu Xin is never able to intervene and help ease the strain in Ruth and LuLing’s relationship directly. Only after Ruth receives the Chinese Bible and photo of Liu Xin, which Ruth views as a sign of her mother’s love, does the tension between the two become lessened. After reading the memoir, Ruth finally learns the truth behind her mother’s obsession with Precious Auntie and erratic behaviour - it is then that Ruth is able to understand her mother, wanting to tell her, “I’m sorry and I forgive you too” (Tan 353).
Undoubtedly, The Bonesetter’s Daughter is a book characterised by the daughters’ quest to make peace with their mothers.

In the discussed analyses, Goh is able to recognise the power mothers have in setting the course of their daughter’s lives whilst Pu attributes it to spirituality. It would be foolish to completely disregard the spirituality rooted in the women’s inner self and ancestry, but the novel does not provide enough conclusive evidence to attribute spirituality as the driving force in shaping the identities of the women. A reader may take The Bonesetter’s Daughter and apply it to their own life, learning to acknowledge the efforts of immigrant parents and native ancestry, building a more valid ethnic identity for

oneself.