The Bonesetter's Daughter Chapter Summary

In the story "Bones" by J. Lee Engfer, we meet a young, 27 year old, self diagnosed hypochondriac named Lea who acts as if she doesn't appreciate life. Lea in the beginning of the story is a pessimist but towards the end we see a change in her ideas and thinking until she becomes optimistic about her life. We also meet a young spirited older woman named Thea who is vivacious and fun loving with a sense of style which makes her almost 1940's Hollywood-esque, with the neck scarves and painted on eyebrows. The story is a small look into Lea's life. We learn key points about her such as her mother passing away, and her self-diagnosed hypochondria. It's Halloween and Lea and her friend Thea go for a walk

“Your mother is in your bones” (Tan 40). This theme is present throughout the novel, The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan. The novel consists of four stories of mothers and daughters and their relationship. Each family came from different backgrounds but still share the commonality of Chinese culture. Each mother stayed true to their beliefs while each daughter allowed themselves to embrace their American lives. The conflicting ideas between generations made their relationships more powerful and brought them closer together in the end. Amy Tan uses symbolism to emphasize the meaning and strength of each relationship. The symbols were able to connect the two by sharing a concept to both of their lives. There were many different symbols that relate

In the novel, "The Bonesetter’s Daughter" by Amy Tan, she expresses communication and silence, by tone, theme, and the use of symbols. Amy Tan effectively portrays a melodramatic tone and a theme that shows a development of mother and daughter relationships, as well as symbols that describe communication and silence, such as the ink and the sand box.

American novelist Jane Hamilton was born on July 13, 1957 in Oak Park, Illinois. After being told that she would never succeed as an author, Hamilton went on to write short stories, tow which she received praise for, eventually winning the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for her 1988 classic, The Book of Ruth (Shufeldt). Her first novel follows the life of Ruth Grey Dahl, a poor girl in the small town of Honey Creek, Illinois. She lives with her mother May and for a while, her brother Matthew. Surrounded by a motley crew of family and friends, Ruth’s life takes off for a new rollercoaster ride with every character introduction. As each individual character shapes Ruth in a different manner, she learns what will become the overarching theme of the novel. Jane Hamilton is able to characterize Ruth through her many interactions with those around her. By the end of the novel, the characterization of Ruth uncovers the overarching theme of The Book of Ruth, which is that suffering and sorrow is inevitable, however the way in which you deal with it is what makes you who you are. Unfortunately for Ruth, her life is mainly dictated by the characters associated with her, a dismal fact that leads her to a multitude of disappointments and regrets. Ruth fails to control her own life, instead allowing her friends and family, including her abusive mother, missing father, genius brother, floozy best friend, and crazed husband, to do so for her, which will result in her own character

Bone, born Ruth Anne Boatwright, was born when her mother was fifteen. In an essay written by Dorothy Allison about her personal life, she explains that she too was born when her mother was fifteen years old (“A Question of Class”). As a result, her personal life influenced the writing of Bone’s life. Her mother was seemingly “absent” from her birth due to a car accident that left her unconscious. When discussing the origin of her name, Bone stated that “My mama didn’t have much to say about it,

LuLing also grows as a character both emotionally and psychologically. In Part Two, she starts out as what she believed to be the least favorite child of Mother and a curse to the family back in China, learns about who her real mother was and sacrifices she made for her (183), and later becomes an accomplished calligrapher and mother. LuLing undergoes so much tragedy in China, but upon coming to the United States she is exposed to countless opportunities that, without them, would not have led to Ruth’s birth and later success. The progress made by the mother-daughter duo throughout Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter contributes to the story’s richness in culture and transitions of time. Tan starts off with Ruth and her life in San Francisco,

China which really hurt her. Due to the daughter saying this their relationship went downhill

The novel is set in the mid to late 20th-century. It is full of bizarre coincidences, multiple plot lines, lengthy deviations, and stories within stories, quite like A Visit from the Goon Squad. Although it is set up in chronological order, the reader is exposed to various stories from three set periods in the life of the main character, Ruth Cole. The story begins in childhood and ends in womanhood, taking us through the transitions of Ruth’s life. The novel begins in the summer of 1958, on Long Island when Ruth is only four years old. In the first line of the novel, Ruth has a piece of her innocence stripped from her when she walks in to find her mother in bed with her lover. The narrative states that “There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep” (151). Although she has seen what no child should see at her age, she is still

The main conflicts that Bone has is person vs. self and person vs. person. The main conflict that Bone has about herself is she feels that she’s worthless. She feels that all of the horrible things that Glen does to her is because she did something wrong to deserve it. She feels like she can’t do anything right. Whenever she thinks that she's doing good Glen ends up finding something to get mad at her for. She feels that her mom doesn’t love because she stays with Glen even though he beats Bone. Bone feels she’s not worthy enough because her mom won’t leave Glen for her. She also feels ashamed that she masterbates. She knows it's not something that she should be doing, but she does it because she likes it. She feels like a bad christian when

The loneliness and shabbiness of the town invokes Ruth to state that the surrounding landscape is the true setting of the story: "Fingerbone was never an impressive town. It was chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere" (Robinson 62). The only railway into and out of town is plagued with a tragic accident, which introduces the lake as a central part of the story. The lake is an omnipresent facet of Fingerbone symbolizing death and abandonment; however, it is hauntingly alluring to both Sylvie and Ruth. Ruth is fixed upon her mother’s death while Sylvie is obsessed with the accident that took her father’s life and that of countless others.

The author Amy Tan decided to characterize the mothers through their particular stories because it helps the reader really figure out how they are instead of just flat out saying it. By telling the story, it gives the reader a deeper meaning and deeper thoughts about how women in China during the 1930s were really treated. It helps the reader understand now how they felt and it puts the reader in their shoes. The portrayal of it being historically accurate enhances the power of the novel.

She mentions things that use to make her happy, but do not anymore since she no longer had the love of her life. The depression is noted when she says, “a year ago all this – the music, the wind and darkness, the shadows of the branches – would have given me tremendous happiness.” (Munro 155) This feeling that was no longer apart of her is directly what motivated her to “get drunk”. She mentions that she was expecting a “sweeping emotional change”. (Munro 155) It is obvious that she was trying to self-medicate with alcohol to suppress her depression and obsession with losing her love. The way the narrator describes how her mother looks at her with a look of expectation. Her mother expectation was for her to have “orchids, nice boys, and diamond rings”. (Munro 153) The mother is the kind of person to right the wrong that her daughter has done. The story shows this relationship by the mother going to buy a bottle of scotch to replace the one that the narrator had drank from. This shows an adverse relation to that of Bony’s parents who have a more hands off approach to raising their

Amy Tan uses the conflict between mother and daughter by showing how her mother pushes Jing-mei so that she can become successful by her being the smart, talented Chinese girl that she's ?supposed? to be. But Jing-mei does not want to be that girl that her Mom wants so she refuses to do such things. ??You want me to be something that I?m not!? I sobbed. ? I?ll never be the kind of

       Amy Tan’s tone in this point in The Bonesetter’s Daughter is childish. Ruth begins to lose her innocence as she learns about human reproduction through school and her best friend, Wendy.

The one particular story that Aunt Alma portrays dwells on Bone's biological father. Towards the beginning of the novel, Bone speculates about her biological father and why she has never met him. In an effort to prove that he is not someone that Bone should want to meet, she describes the one time he came to see Bone: "'That boy was scared shitless, holding you...You just looked at him with your black Indian eyes like he wasn't nothing but a servant...Then you pissed a pailful all down his sleeves, the front of his shirt, and right down his pants halfway to his knees! You peed all over that son of a bitch!'" (Allison 25). Joyous with this memory, Alma told Bone this flashback because she likes the fact that Bone did spiteful