The main theme of The Bonecutter's Daughter is the importance of communication in relationships and how without communication relationships suffer. Tan shows us this in many different ways, through: mothers, daughters and spouses. It shows us how hiding our past, feelings, and intentions leads to misinterpretations of actions and weakening relationships. Tan focuses primarily on mother-daughter relationships and how harmful miscommunication is to both mother and daughter and their relationship. There are several mothers and daughters, who suffer due to their uncommunicative relationships, in The Bonecutter's Daughter: Ruth and her mother LuLing; Ruth and Art's children; LuLing and the Mother; and finally LuLing and Precious Auntie. The most important and main relationship should be between Ruth and her mother, LuLing. LuLing always kept a very strict watch on Ruth and was very critical of everything she did. This wasn't because LuLing didn't trust Ruth or wasn't proud of her, LuLing had simply grown up where these behaviors meant that the person giving the rules and criticism only cared and wanted the best for the other. Ruth didn't understand it because, unlike her mother, no one had ever explained it to her. Ruth always felt like LuLing didn't trust her or approve of anything she did. The fact that Ruth never told her mother that she felt this way meant that her mother didn't know that her way of showing love was missing the point. LuLing also kept secrets about her past, her mother's identity, how she changed her age, and what she experienced in China. Those secrets took away Ruth's opportunity to relate to or understand her mother more. This also led Ruth to believe that her mother was going crazy at an alarming rate, after being diagnosed with brain dementia, when in reality LuLing was mostly just forgetting to keep up with her lies. LuLing and her relationship with her real mother, Precious Auntie, was also full of communication missteps. The biggest problem that precious auntie hid from LuLing was that she was actually her mother, not just a nurse. Not telling LuLing distorted LuLing's priorities. LuLing didn't know who she should look up to or who she should try to impress and meet that person's expectations of her. If LuLing had known that her precious aunt was really her mother, she would have found that she had all the love and encouragement she needed, instead of trying to get it from her mother..