Dealing With Death In 'The Lovely Bones'

“Nothing is ever certain” (Sebold 22). Very true, nothing in life is guaranteed other than one fact, death is certain. The aftermath of a death takes time and changes lives. In Hamlet, Hamlet has a hard time accepting his father’s death at the same time, feeling like he is dealing with it alone. Susie’s family members all deal with the death in their individual ways and struggle to move on with their lives. With come various changes in people’s lives. Relationships fail and new ones are formed. People deal with things differently than someone else might. Personality that was never seen before comes out and changes the person for the better or worse. An example of this would be Hamlet and Ophelia and their relationship. Their relationships fails, after

In The Lovely Bones, Mr./Mrs. Salmon are another instance where relationships fail and reform. They handle their daughters’ death differently, such that it separates them from each other. Len Fenerman, Mrs. Salmon’s lover can’t deny the attraction he feels for her. “ He was inside the capsule of his car, thinking of my mother, of how wrong it all was and then of how he could not say no to her for reasons he couldn’t hold on to long enough to analyze or disclaim” (Sebold 220). Mrs. Salmon cheats on her husband for reasons that she doesn’t know how to deal with her loss and suffering. After years go by, they come back together and grow into healing the wounds left from neglect and the death. Other than relationship wise failures, there are characters that share common traits in approaching life after death. Jack Salmon, Susie’s father and Hamlet can’t seem to move on and have the hardest time moving forward. They drive people away, isolating themselves by acting insane and being called insane. Through the struggles, they are both uneasy because solving the murder to every extent results them ending up hurting/killing