Susie Salmon is killed on December 6, 1973 by her family’s
neighbor, George Harvey.
Mr. Harvey lures Susie into a hole he dug in the cornfield. When she tries to
leave he rips off her clothes, gags her with her hat and rapes her. He kills
her, cuts her up, and puts her in a bag that he takes with him before he fills
in the hole. He puts the bag with her body in a safe and takes the safe to the
local sinkhole. The lovely bones, by Alice Sebold, shows that one person’s
death, can change everyone’s life’s.
Everyone is taking Susie’s
death differently. The dad is
deeply saddened by Susie's death and does everything he can to avenge it. He
also feels guilty that he was unable to be there for her when she needed him.
While he tries to focus his attention on his two surviving children, he always
finds himself thinking of Susie as well. Him and
Susie used to build ships in bottles when she was alive, after her death he
smashed them all. “He christened the walls
and wooden chair with the news of my death, and afterward he stood in the guest
room/den surrounded by green glass. The bottle, all of them, lay broken on the
floor, the sails and boat bodies strewn among them. He stood in the wreckage.” I think by the father doing this, it shows that the way
he is getting through her death is anger.
The mom of Susie is taking her
death in denial. After Susie's
death she distances herself from her family and begins to resent her role as
mother. She leaves the family mid-novel in order to pursue her life as an
individual and to escape from the pain of Susie's death. By leaving I think it shows that she just wants to forget about what
happened, and is partly denying that Susie ever died, and if she leaves, she
will end up forgetting.
Overall the lovely bones by Alice Sebold shows that death
can be taken in many ways. Anger and denial are two ways, but there are many
more that come up in the book that show up in her siblings, friends, and just
people who knew her.
