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The oracle bone symbolizes tradition, the past, and the power of storytelling. Oracle bones connect Precious Auntie to her family after her father, the famous Bonesetter, dies. When Precious Auntie becomes LuLing’s nursemaid, she loses her identity as the daughter of a revered, famous bonesetter and healer. Furthermore, because Precious Auntie cannot claim LuLing as her daughter, she is also unable to pass down her family lineage to LuLing, who is its rightful inheritor. Precious Auntie cannot explicitly pass down her father’s wisdom to LuLing, but she can give LuLing the oracle bone to symbolize LuLing’s rightful place among the family of bonesetters.
Oracle bones also symbolize the power of storytelling and writing to preserve tradition and immortalize memory. In ancient China, diviners would inscribe questions into the surface of oracle bones for the gods to answer. Because diviners often carved their questions into the bones with a sharp tool, the writing survived the ravages of time. The written language on the oracle bones shows how documenting history in writing can transmit messages across time and immortalize the past. After all, it is through writing that Precious Auntie shares her life story with LuLing—it’s also through writing that LuLing later passes down her life story to Ruth. The novel ends as Ruth sits in her office and prepares to begin her own written contribution toward documenting her family’s heritage.
However, bones also carry negative connotations. Precious Auntie believes the bones her family has removed from the Monkey’s Jaw cave belong to their ancestor, who has placed a curse on the family as revenge for disturbing his grave. After Precious Auntie’s suicide, Mother orders for the body to be thrown into the quarry behind the Liu compound. A central part of LuLing’s guilt over Precious Auntie’s death—and the reason Precious Auntie has cursed LuLing—is that she failed to retrieve the bones and honor Precious Auntie with a proper burial. So, while the oracle bone symbolizes the rich cultural lineage that Precious Auntie passes down to LuLing, bones in general also reflect how inherited curses, traumas, and anxieties from the past that can continue to haunt people.
Bones Quotes in The Bonesetter’s Daughter
The The Bonesetter’s Daughter quotes below all refer to the symbol of Bones. 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:
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Part One: Chapter Three
Quotes
“I hope you will still forgive me. Please know that my life has been miserable ever since you left me. That is why I ask you to take my life, but to spare my daughter if the curse cannot be changed. I know her recent accident was a warning.”
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Part Two: Ghost
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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.
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Part Three: Chapter One
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She understood more clearly why her mother had always wanted to find Precious Auntie’s bones and bury them in the proper place. She wanted to walk through the End of the World and make amends. She wanted to tell her mother, “I’m sorry and I forgive you, too.”
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Part Three: Chapter Three
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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.
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Bones Symbol Timeline in The Bonesetter’s Daughter
The timeline below shows where the symbol Bones appears in The Bonesetter’s Daughter. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part Two: Heart
...scratches that ran along its sides. Today, this type of bone is called an “ oracle bone ” and is very valuable, though bone diggers used to file them down before selling...
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...bridal costume and begins the journey to Immortal Heart, where the wedding will occur. The bonesetter rents mule carts to carry Precious Auntie’s things to her new husband’s home, including her...
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...will haunt them. Fearing a curse, the women tend to Precious Auntie’s wounds, crushing dragon bones and sprinkling the powder into her mouth. Around this time, they discover that Precious Auntie...
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Part Two: Change
...the Mountain to dig in the quarries and caves. They also buy all the old bones in the medicine shops. A rumor begins to spread that the scientists have discovered that...
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...Man, the scientists offer rewards in exchange for villagers willing to give them their dragon bones. Soon, the whole village is obsessed with the possibility of new wealth, and nobody can...
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LuLing recalls the bones Precious Auntie returned to the cave and suggests they retrieve and try to sell them,...
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...Cook comes by the compound and announces that Chang would soon be rich from the bones he sold to the scientists, who had verified that the bones were indeed human. The...
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Part Two: Destiny
...foreign men who work there are scientists who were involved with finding the Peking Man’s bones. The orphanage hosts around 70 girls, most of whom are illegitimate children like LuLing. All...
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...a small pocket in the blue cloth that binds the story, she finds a small oracle bone Precious Auntie had shown her when she was a little girl, as well as an...
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Part Two: Character
...take them. Meanwhile, she visits Kai Jing’s resting place every day and places the oracle bones he’d dug up over the past few months atop his grave.
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Part Two: Fragrance
...jacket, and Precious Auntie’s story and photograph—are valuable only to herself. Then, she remembers the oracle bone . She realizes the bone is her last chance to earn enough money to leave...
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...her for forgiveness, for LuLing has decided that the time has come to sell her oracle bone . The money LuLing receives from the bone and her savings from working as a...
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Part Three: Chapter Three
...adds that the bone is significant for LuLing, since her mother’s father had been a bonesetter. LuLing agrees.
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...Soon, LuLing’s sharpness appears to fade. As Mr. Tang explains how emperors would use the oracle bone for answers about things like the weather, Ruth considers her own history of prophecy, recalling...
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