The Lovely Bones and Beloved
A comparison of the ways that the dead affect the living in the novels Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
In the novels that I have chosen to study, several themes are prominent in both. Both novels deal with a brutal murder of a young female, and the impact surrounding her death. They also deal with the idea of the dead, directly or indirectly communicating with the living. The novels address the theory that ‘ghosts’ cannot move onto the next life until they have resolved unfinished business on Earth. The idea that the living are tied to those who die and untimely death is also present in both novels. As well as these themes which are present in both novels, the novels also share a similar non linear narrative
The Lovely Bones explores two levels of death - both those that are left behind and the departed. Sebold uses the omniscient first person narrator, of the young Suzie Salmon a fourteen year old brutally raped and murdered very early on in the novel. Through the narrator, Sebold expresses her own beliefs, in heaven and our own life process. Through Suzie’s new position in heaven we see her observing the family which she has left behind, and the impact her life has had on them as well as the whole community. Throughout the novel we are taken back to time before her death and major events that happened to her. This structure is very similar to that of Beloved. Beloved is written in an experimental structure. It is not a linear tale, told from beginning to end. It is a story encompassing levels of past, from the slave ship to Sweet home, as well as the present. Sometimes the past is told in flashbacks, sometimes in stories, and sometimes it is plainly told, as if it were happening in the present (with the highly unusual use of the present tense). The novel is, in essence, written in fragments, pieces shattered and left for the reader to place together. The juxtaposition of past with present serves to reinforce the idea that the
In the novels that I have chosen to study, several themes are prominent in both. Both novels deal with a brutal murder of a young female, and the impact surrounding her death. They also deal with the idea of the dead, directly or indirectly communicating with the living. The novels address the theory that ‘ghosts’ cannot move onto the next life until they have resolved unfinished business on Earth. The idea that the living are tied to those who die and untimely death is also present in both novels. As well as these themes which are present in both novels, the novels also share a similar non linear narrative
The Lovely Bones explores two levels of death - both those that are left behind and the departed. Sebold uses the omniscient first person narrator, of the young Suzie Salmon a fourteen year old brutally raped and murdered very early on in the novel. Through the narrator, Sebold expresses her own beliefs, in heaven and our own life process. Through Suzie’s new position in heaven we see her observing the family which she has left behind, and the impact her life has had on them as well as the whole community. Throughout the novel we are taken back to time before her death and major events that happened to her. This structure is very similar to that of Beloved. Beloved is written in an experimental structure. It is not a linear tale, told from beginning to end. It is a story encompassing levels of past, from the slave ship to Sweet home, as well as the present. Sometimes the past is told in flashbacks, sometimes in stories, and sometimes it is plainly told, as if it were happening in the present (with the highly unusual use of the present tense). The novel is, in essence, written in fragments, pieces shattered and left for the reader to place together. The juxtaposition of past with present serves to reinforce the idea that the