The Bonesetter's Daughter Literary Elements

Historical Fiction

Set in San Francisco in the late twentieth century and China from the 1900s to 1940s.

Third-person narration from the perspective of an omniscient narrator. LuLing’s story is told in the first person from her point of view.

The first story is compassionate and even-tempered while the second is pensive, remorseful, and hurt.

The protagonist is Ruth Young and the antagonist is the challenging mother-daughter relationship.

The complex relationship between Ruth and her mother creates a rift that she cannot reconcile even as an adult. Therefore, she decides to learn about LuLing’s past to understand this disconnect between immigrant mothers and their assimilated daughters.

The climax takes place when Ruth proceeds to read her mother’s story from the manuscript.

The suicide of LuLing’s biological mother foreshadows her suicidal ideation and that of Ruth too.

“Her mother had never expressed vanity about her looks, but with the dementia, the modesty censors must not have been working. Dementia was like a truth serum.”

“LuLing was like the losing contestant on Jeopardy! Total for LuLing Young: minus five hundred points. And now for our final Jeopardy/ round…”

“The claw-footed iron tub was as soothing as a sarcophagus, and the pedestal sink with its separate spigots dispensed water that was either scalding hot or icy cold. As Ruth reached for the dental floss, she knocked over other items on the windowsill: potions for wrinkles, remedies for pimples, nose-hair clippers, and a plastic mug jammed with nine toothbrushes whose ownership and vintage were always in question. While she was picking up the mess, desperate pounding rattled the door.”

The paradox is in Ruth’s choice to use silence to make people care about her, which she adopts later in life.

The narrative parallels Precious Auntie, Ruth, and LuLing as they suffer from psychological scars from their pasts.

“Ruth had a hard time seeing without her glasses”

Glasses is synecdoche for spectacles.

“The fog was sweeping over the ramparts of the bridge, devouring the headlamps of cars”