The main theme of The Bonesetter's Daughter is the importance of communication in relationships and how without communication, relationships suffer. Tan shows this to us in several different ways, through: mothers, daughters and spouses. She shows us how hiding our past, our feelings and our intentions leads to misinterpretations of actions and the weakening of relationships. Tan mainly focuses on mother-daughter relationships and the detrimental consequences of poor communication for mother and daughter and their relationship. There are several mothers and daughters who suffer because of their uncommunicative relationships throughout The Bonesetter's Daughter: Ruth and her mother LuLing; children of Ruth and Art; LuLing and Mother; and finally LuLing and Precious Auntie. The most important and primary relationship would have to be between Ruth and her mother, LuLing. LuLing always kept a very strict rule over Ruth and was very critical of everything she did. It wasn't because LuLing didn't trust Ruth or wasn't proud of her, LuLing had simply been raised where these behaviors meant that the person giving the rules and criticism cared and only wanted the best for each other. Ruth didn't understand this because, unlike her mother, no one explained it to her. Ruth always felt that LuLing didn't trust her and didn't approve of what she did. The fact that Ruth never told her mother that she felt this way was infuriating, so her mother didn't know that her way of showing love wasn't getting the message across. LuLing also kept secrets about her past, who her mother was, how she changed her age, and what she experienced in China. These secrets prevented Ruth from connecting with or understanding her mother better. This also led Ruth to believe that her mother was losing her mind at an alarming rate, having been diagnosed with brain dementia, when in reality LuLing was mostly just forgetting to follow her lies. LuLing and her relationship with her real mother, Precious Auntie, has also been filled with communication missteps. The biggest problem the precious aunt was hiding from LuLing had to be that she was actually his mother, not just a nurse. Not telling LuLing this skewed LuLing's priorities. LuLing didn't know who she should look up to or who she was supposed to try to impress and live up to that person's expectations of her. If LuLing had known that her Precious Aunt was really her mother, she would have discovered that she had all the love and encouragement she needed, instead of trying to get it from Mother..