Analysis Of The Lovely Bones By Alice Sebold

Famous writer, Virginia Woolf, once said, “The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting through the heart asunder.” The Lovely Bones is a book about a fourteen year old girl named Susie Salmon. Shortly after the book begins, an abrupt turn takes place; the reader learns that young Susie Salmon was murdered and raped by a man. The rest of the book focuses on the family of Susie Salmon and how the death of their daughter drives them to the brink of insanity. While Alice Sebold explains what’s going on in reality, she also has another part of the story that takes place in Heaven with Susie. Why would one want to read a book that focuses on grief and depression in the present and after life? The overall story …show more content…
None of the characters came off as being fake or inconceivable; the feelings of the characters were conveyed onto the reader. For example, one of the most touching parts in the book is when Ray and Ruth are having a conversation shortly after it was announced that Susie Salmon was very possibly murdered. Maybe it is just the word choice that Sebold uses, but she really made the reader feel sympathy for the ones affected by Salmon’s death and anger towards Mr. Harvey. “Do you ever think about her?” he asked. They were quiet again. “All the time,” Ruth said. A chill ran down my spine. “Sometimes I think she's lucky, you know. I hate this place” (Sebold 33). Ray was heartbroken when he heard about Susie and he did not know what to do with himself. He was foreign exchange student and he was new at Susie’s school. She always had an eye for him, but she never made of move because she was too scared of being rejected. The passage makes the reader thankful for what they have and educates the reader on how important every moment is. Ray never knew what was going to happen to Susie, no one did. After reading this passage the reader learns about how important it is to cherish every moment in life.
"As with so many other works of contemporary fiction and film, Alice Sebold's bestselling novel The Lovely Bones (2002) fulfills our fundamental and indelibly human desires for establishing …show more content…
Some people describe major conflicts as being like a wave at the beach; Everything is hectic and big when the wave first crashes,but eventually everything returns to being calm and tamed. “I would like to tell you that it is beautiful here, that I am, and you will one day be, forever safe. But this heaven is not about safety just as, in it's graciousness, it isn’t about gritty reality. We have fun” (Sebold 324). This quote shows the reader how Susie learned to cope with what had happened to her and to her family. Throughout the course of the novel, the point of view switches from Susie in heaven to multiple other characters affected by her death. Susie begins to see that her family is beginning to get better and move on and she finally decides that she is ready to go to heaven. Originally, she was not ready to let go of her past and say goodbye to her family, but once she sees them start to get better she moves on. "The Lovely Bones is understood by critics as literary comfort food for a post 9/11 public desperate to believe in the happy afterlife of its lost citizens" (“Uneasy Lie the Bones: Alice Sebold’s Postfeminist Gothic”). Sebold’s novel does in fact portray a “happy afterlife,” but it is what makes the book so touching in the eyes and mind of the reader. It shows how both Susie and her