The Bonesetter’s Daughter

by

Amy Tan

GaoLing Young Character Analysis

GaoLing is married to Ruth’s uncle, Edmund Young, so Ruth knows her as Auntie Gal. GaoLing and LuLing are roughly the same age and grew up thinking they were sisters, though they’re technically cousins. After Precious Auntie’s death, they discover they’re not biological sisters. Despite this shocking revelation, GaoLing continues to treat LuLing as a sister, and they support each other during the war and after they emigrate to America. Growing up, LuLing is often jealous of the attention and praise GaoLing receives from Mother, and she envies GaoLing’s good fortune as the girls enter adulthood. GaoLing’s life is objectively easier than LuLing’s: she is not as haunted by her past, and her husband Edmund’s prosperous career enables her to live a comfortable, stable life. While GaoLing had to endure an unhappy marriage to Fu Nan, Chang’s fourth son, she manages to escape her husband and start fresh in America with minimal emotional baggage. Still, like LuLing, GaoLing keeps some aspects of her past a secret from those closest to her. LuLing is the only person in GaoLing’s life who knows that she was married in China before she emigrated to the U.S. and married Edmund. In turn, GaoLing is also the only person in LuLing’s life who knows the truth about Precious Auntie. Despite their occasional squabbles, the sisters’ lifelong commitment to keeping each other’s secrets and looking out for each other shows how the traumatic experiences they endured in their youth renders their bond indestructible. Lastly, it is GaoLing who eventually remembers Precious Auntie’s name and passes down this information to Ruth, enabling Ruth and LuLing to find closure and reclaim their lineage.

GaoLing Young Quotes in The Bonesetter’s Daughter

The The Bonesetter’s Daughter quotes below are all either spoken by GaoLing Young or refer to GaoLing Young. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Secrecy and Misunderstanding  Theme Icon
).
Truth Quotes

Why can’t I see it now? I’ve pushed a hundred family names through my mouth, and none comes back with the belch of memory. Was the name uncommon? Did I lose it because I kept it a secret too long? Maybe I lost it the same way I lost all my favorite things—the jacket GaoLing gave me when I left for the orphan school, the dress my second husband said made me look like a movie star, the first baby dress that Luyi outgrew. Each time I loved something with a special ache, I put it in my trunk of best things. I hid those things for so long I almost forgot I had them.

Related Characters: LuLing Liu Young (speaker), Ruth Young, Precious Auntie, GaoLing Young, Pan Kai Jing
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Part One: Chapter Four Quotes

This was the crazy woman who had cared for her mother since birth, who had smothered LuLing with fears and superstitious notions. LuLing had told her that when she was fourteen, this nursemaid killed herself in a gruesome way that was “too bad to say.” Whatever means the nursemaid used, she also made LuLing believe it was her fault. Precious Auntie was the reason her mother was convinced she could never be happy, why she always had to expect the worst, fretting until she found it.

Related Characters: Ruth Young, LuLing Liu Young, Precious Auntie, GaoLing Young, Mother (Liu)
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:
Part Two: Ghost Quotes

I searched for her until dusk. By then, my eyes were swollen with dust and tears. I never found her. And as I climbed back up, I was a girl who had lost part of herself in the End of the World.

Related Characters: LuLing Liu Young (speaker), Precious Auntie, GaoLing Young, Mother (Liu)
Related Symbols: Bones
Page Number: 222-223
Explanation and Analysis:
Part Two: Fragrance Quotes

I sailed for America, a land without curses or ghosts. By the time I landed, I was five years younger. Yet I felt so old.

Related Characters: LuLing Liu Young (speaker), Ruth Young, GaoLing Young
Page Number: 307
Explanation and Analysis:
Part Three: Chapter Three Quotes

Ruth began to cry. Her grandmother had a name. Gu Liu Xin. She had existed. She still existed. Precious Auntie belonged to a family. LuLing belonged to that same family, and Ruth belonged to them both. The family name had been there all along, like a bone stuck in the crevices of a gorge. LuLing had divined it while looking at an oracle in the museum. And the given name had flashed before her as well for the briefest of moments, a shooting star that entered the earth’s atmosphere, etching itself indelibly in Ruth’s mind.

Related Characters: Ruth Young, LuLing Liu Young, Precious Auntie, GaoLing Young
Related Symbols: Bones
Page Number: 364-365
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Bonesetter’s Daughter PDF

GaoLing Young Quotes in The Bonesetter’s Daughter

The The Bonesetter’s Daughter quotes below are all either spoken by GaoLing Young or refer to GaoLing Young. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Secrecy and Misunderstanding  Theme Icon
).
Truth Quotes

Why can’t I see it now? I’ve pushed a hundred family names through my mouth, and none comes back with the belch of memory. Was the name uncommon? Did I lose it because I kept it a secret too long? Maybe I lost it the same way I lost all my favorite things—the jacket GaoLing gave me when I left for the orphan school, the dress my second husband said made me look like a movie star, the first baby dress that Luyi outgrew. Each time I loved something with a special ache, I put it in my trunk of best things. I hid those things for so long I almost forgot I had them.

Related Characters: LuLing Liu Young (speaker), Ruth Young, Precious Auntie, GaoLing Young, Pan Kai Jing
Page Number: 5
Explanation and Analysis:
Part One: Chapter Four Quotes

This was the crazy woman who had cared for her mother since birth, who had smothered LuLing with fears and superstitious notions. LuLing had told her that when she was fourteen, this nursemaid killed herself in a gruesome way that was “too bad to say.” Whatever means the nursemaid used, she also made LuLing believe it was her fault. Precious Auntie was the reason her mother was convinced she could never be happy, why she always had to expect the worst, fretting until she found it.

Related Characters: Ruth Young, LuLing Liu Young, Precious Auntie, GaoLing Young, Mother (Liu)
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:
Part Two: Ghost Quotes

I searched for her until dusk. By then, my eyes were swollen with dust and tears. I never found her. And as I climbed back up, I was a girl who had lost part of herself in the End of the World.

Related Characters: LuLing Liu Young (speaker), Precious Auntie, GaoLing Young, Mother (Liu)
Related Symbols: Bones
Page Number: 222-223
Explanation and Analysis:
Part Two: Fragrance Quotes

I sailed for America, a land without curses or ghosts. By the time I landed, I was five years younger. Yet I felt so old.

Related Characters: LuLing Liu Young (speaker), Ruth Young, GaoLing Young
Page Number: 307
Explanation and Analysis:
Part Three: Chapter Three Quotes

Ruth began to cry. Her grandmother had a name. Gu Liu Xin. She had existed. She still existed. Precious Auntie belonged to a family. LuLing belonged to that same family, and Ruth belonged to them both. The family name had been there all along, like a bone stuck in the crevices of a gorge. LuLing had divined it while looking at an oracle in the museum. And the given name had flashed before her as well for the briefest of moments, a shooting star that entered the earth’s atmosphere, etching itself indelibly in Ruth’s mind.

Related Characters: Ruth Young, LuLing Liu Young, Precious Auntie, GaoLing Young
Related Symbols: Bones
Page Number: 364-365
Explanation and Analysis: