1. Setting: The setting of the Lovely Bones takes place mainly in a small town near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the time of 1973-1981. Throughout the novel, a few minor settings also occur in New Hampshire and California.
2. Character: In this novel the main characters include Susie Salmon (Main character who gets killed), George Harvey (Murderer), Jack, Abigail, Lindsey, and Buckley Salmon (Susie’s Family), Ruth Connors (Girl in Susie’s class obsessed with her), and Len Fenerman (Detective in Susie’s case).
3. Background Information: The Lovely Bones is a Novel written in 2002 by Alice Sebolds. This book is narrated by a 14 year old girl names Susie Salmon who was raped and killed by her serial killer neighbor. Throughout the novel
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she watches over her family and friends from a place that is on earth and in heaven to help them solve her murder. 4. Central Problem: The central problem in this novel is grief and loss due to Susie’s disappearance. This problem occurs within Susie’s family, friends, and even herself. They are upset they don’t know what happened to their daughter Susie. B. Inciting Incident: After school one evening, Susie decided to take a shortcut through a cornfield on her way home. While walking, she comes across her neighbor, Mr. Harvey in the middle of the cornfield in the dark and becomes a little frightened. C. Rising Action 1. Event 1: Mr. Harvey starts a conversation with Susie but Susie doesn’t want to talk to him and tells him several times she has to go home. To keep Susie’s attention, he begins to talk to her about his “Hiding Place” underground that he built himself. 2. Event 2: Susie was curious, so Mr. Harvey shows her and takes her underground in his “Hiding Place” While underground Susie doesn’t think anything is wrong until he begins to ask awkward and uncomfortable questions for a 14 year old girl. 3. Event 3: After Susie realizes she put herself in a bad situation, it is too late and Mr. Harvey won’t let her leave. D. Technical Climax 1: Susie tries to escape, but Mr. Harvey grabs her and begins to kiss her. Susie then starts to beg and cry for him to stop, but he doesn’t listen and begins to rape her, then after asking several other questions, he murderers her in his underground hiding spot. E. Falling Action 1. Event 1: Susie gets to heaven and learns that she has her own personal heaven and can still watch over earth. 2.
Event 2: 6 days after Susie’s disappearance, the detective of Susie’s case, Len Fenerman, contacts Susie’s family to inform them that he has found one of her body parts. While this event is occurring, Susie can watch this all unravel from heaven and is watching her parent’s reactions.
3. Event 3: Then, they begin to find other clues and evidence that Susie is officially dead and not just missing anymore.
F. Rising Action
1. Event 1: The police begin to investigate the cornfield where Susie was killed and raped. The scene of the crime has been tapered due to the snow and weather conditions.
2. Event 2: They find a copy of the book “To Kill a Mocking Bird” and later find out that that book belonged to Susie. They also continue their search and later find notes and more items that belonged to Susie.
3. Event 3: Up in Susie’s own heaven, she watches down on earth and is very upset and frustrated because her murderer, Mr. Harvey is continuing his life as nothing even happened while her whole family is suffering and there is nothing that she can do.
G. Technical Climax 2: Susie comes in contact with Ruth Connors, a school friend, this is a huge turning point and shift in action because this is the first time Susie comes in contact with the
living. H. Falling Action 1. Event 1: Ruth just thinks the conversation she has with Susie was a dream and tells her mom, but he mom just shrugs it off and says that that idea was not real and was just silly. 2. Event 2: While Susie continues to look down on earth at her family, she beings to watch her father. She notices him looking at all the ships they have collected in bottles and he gets so frustrated that he breaks all of them. He begins to throw the glass bottles everywhere and crushing them with baseball bats. 3. Event 3: While he is doing so, he notices Susie’s reflection in the glass and he loses it. Susie is really there, but he can’t cope with it and runs up into her room and cries and thinks of all the memories they had together. I. Rising Action 1. Event 1: Mr. Harvey begins to finish cleaning up Susie’s murder so he doesn’t have to worry about it anymore. He puts Susie’s body parts in a boxed safe, and dumps it in a sinkhole 9 miles out of their neighborhood. Later in the night he notices Susie’s charm bracelet he had in his pocket and dumps that in a lake. 2. Event 2: Mr. Harvey, still doing his old ways, begins to start to make another trap for his next victim. Mr. Harvey starts to notice and have an interest in Lindsey, which is Susie’s little sister and that might be his next victim. 3. Event 3: Ironically, Susie’s dad, Jack Salmon, helps to aid him in making his new trap. Hours after helping him make his new trap. He begins to get curious and starts asking questions. Mr. Harvey doesn’t like it and denies everything. After Jack catches on and is very curious, Mr. Harvey tells him he must leave at once. Mr. Salmon then calls the detective and says that Harvey may know something. J. Technical Climax 3: Susie’s begins to watch over the family more than ever. She watches as her father begins to detonate and go crazy. He knows something is up with Mr. Harvey and is convinced he is the murderer, but needs hard evidence. Mr. Salmon attacks in the cornfield because he thinks it is Mr. Harvey, but ends up getting himself in more trouble. The police are sick of Jacks assumptions and say they’re done looking into Mr. Harvey and are about done with this investigation. K. Falling Action 1. Event 1: Jack Salmon is now in the hospital due to getting beat with a bat and now needs knee surgery. In the hospital is when Abigail Salmon starts her affair with the detective Len, while this is occurring, Susie is watching it all happen as her father is suffering in the hospital. 2. Event 2: Jack begins to notice his wife Abigail starting to disappear and leave him. Susie gets upset and starts to think it is all her fault and if she didn’t walk home from school that way all of these problems wouldn’t be occurring. 3. Event 3: It is now thanksgiving time and the family is upset that Susie isn’t going to be joining them this year. This brings their grandmother involved and she even notices Abigail’s affair and says she must tell them at once, but she denies even having one. L. Rising Action 1. Event 1: Lindsey is now a junior in high school and is getting bullied in school about how she has a crazy dad and she is the sister of a dead girl. 2. Event 2: Jack Salmon then tells Lindsey it’s going to be okay and it will all be over soon. He tells her all of his theories and suspicions on Mr. Harvery and how he started to put all the pieces together. 3. Event 3: While Jack and Lindsey are having a conversation about shaving, he then tells her that Mr. Harvey has to have some evidence of Susie in his house. Lindsey begins to understand what her father is talking about and without him even asking her, she knows she must break into his house and find proof he is the murderer. M. Dramatic Climax: Lindsey watches Mr. Harvey for several days, then makes her move to break in. She finally accomplished her goal, and Susie is in the house waiting for her, she leads Lindsey to the book she wanted her to find. After taking the book back to her father, they finally understand everything and have the proof they wanted. Lindsey and Jack were the 2 who were most devastated with Susie’s death and now have the answers they need. They and Susie are not happy because now they know everything and can finally put an end to this horrible bump in their life. N. Denouement 1. Event 1: After Jack has the evidence he finally needed, he tried to contact the detective. He cannot get ahold of him because his wife is too busy cheating on her husband Jack with the detective. By Abigail doing so, this gives Mr. Harvey plenty of time to gather up his items and leave town before anyone can get to him. 2. Event 2: Susie talks to her father while he is in the hospital again for a heart attack. By him going to the hospital it brings him and his wife Abigail back together again. They reunite and realize they need each other. Susie then sees Mr. Harvey going towards the sinkhole one last time because they’re closing it up and he wants to get rid of all the evidence so nothing can be linked back to him. 3. Event 3: While Mr. Harvey is up to his old ways, he is looking for a new victim. While doing so, as said earlier in the novel that Susie’s favorite way of someone dying was through an icicle, and ironically Mr. Harvey dies from an icicle. The book began with the death of a young girl, and ended with the death of her murderer. Also, Susie’s Sister Lindsey gets married, and has a kid. This will be special to the whole family because it is like a part of Susie is born again.
The second chapter is about Lou Ann?s dilemma with her husband, Angel. This is written in omniscient limited point of view. Lou Ann and Angel have a young baby boy, Dwayne Ray. These two plots meet when Taylor responds to Lou Ann?s advertisement about a room mate, and they move in together. This gave the novel a unique introduction with two plots going on as the readers endure the suspense.
The second half of the book follows Mr. Bragg's developing career and family. Mr. Bragg covered various events like the Miami riots, the Haitian atrocities, and the Susan Smith case among others for his job.
Strange things began to happen the next couple days. First, Joey was in the living room of Grandma’s house making a jig saw puzzle. He heard the sound of a horses hooves walking slowly on the street then the sound stopped in front of the house and heard someone put something in Grandma’s mail box. Joey heard the horse walk away and a little while later Grandma’s mailbox blew up. Next, Ms. Wilcox’s outhouse was destroyed by a cherry bomb. Then, a dead mouse was found floating in the bottle of milk that was delivered to the front
“The Lovely Bones” is a book written by Alice Sebold. It was published in 2002, and it’s about Susie Salmon, a girl that was murdered and no watches her family and murderer from her own heaven. She tries to balance her feeling and watch out for her family since her murderer is still free and with nobody knowing how dangerous he is. In 2009, a movie adapted from the book came out as well.
The genre is “fiction, a supernatural thriller, and a bildungsroman” (Key Facts, 1). The Lovely Bones is written in first person. The novel is said to be complex, a distant place, and then a time of grieving from a loss of an innocent child who was murdered (Guardian, 1). The view of Heaven presented in The Lovely Bones is where you do not have to worry about anything, you get what you want, and understand why you want it. In this novel, Suzie teaches her family what she had learned from her life. The climax of the novel is when Suzie is able to achieve her dream to grow up when Heaven allows her to inhabit Ruth’s body and then make love Ray (Key Facts, 1). One fact about the novel The Lovely Bones is that the beginning of the book is famous for its intense descriptions on Suzie Salmon’s rape that she had to endure. It has been said from many people that The Lovely Bones is the most successful novel since Gone with the Wind (Spring, 1). The Lovely Bones was on the best-seller lists for several months in 2002 (Alice,
In addition, Jack showed his inability to let go of Susie by keeping her physical belongings with him. From heaven, Susie is watching all of this happen, noting that “I knew then he would never give me up. He would never count me as one of the dead. I was his daughter, and he was my dad, and he had loved me as much as he could. I had to let him go” (...). The final sentence is very significant. It is the time when Susie recognizes the need for her to let go if she truly wishes to end her family’s suffering. As Susie is able to forget the past, so does Jack. He soon realizes that Susie lives in his past, memories, and not in objects. Specifically, it is not until Jack survives his heart attack that he fully accepts that his daughter has left. “Last night it had been [Susie’s] father who had finally said it, ‘[Susie’s]never coming home.’ A clear and easy piece of truth that everyone who had ever known me had accepted” (289). Upon realizing this truth, Jack is able to continue with his life, job, and most importantly, to refocus his attention to his two other
Analyzing “How to Read Literature like a Professor” is easy, but on the other hand, to analyze “The Bonesetter’s Daughter” is a consuming task. The difficulty doesn’t lie in the grammar or the structure, but in employing the skills employed by Foster’s book. An unskilled reader would assume that Amy Tan’s novel: The Bonesetter’s Daughter, is just another novel written for entertainment purposes. To an untrained reader, there seems to be no author’s intent to use literary devices that would contextualize the deeper meaning that is usually found in fiction, mythology, and folklore. Instead the novel would seem nothing more than entertainment, but for a reader that isn’t just reading but also searching through the text for the literary devices
A. Stephen C. Bandy and Kathleen G. Ochshorn try in separate occasions to analyze the final scene between the grandmother and the Misfit.
...in her character during her stay at the hospital. Susie realizes that her patient is afraid of dying and thus she comforts her as she weeps and makes her feel loved.
The novel “Salvage the Bones” started with the bible verse “See now that I, even I am he, and there is no god with me; I will kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, neither is there any can deliver out of my hand.” As the novel started with this verse, readers could expect to see a lot of painful experiences that involve life, death and painful events in the characters in the novel. The theme of loss and tragedy is one of the prominent themes that is being portrayed in this novel. The two characters that are affected badly by the theme of loss are Esch and Skeetah. Esch losing the love of her life: Manny, while Skeetah losing his precious dog, China. Through the loss and tragedy event, the readers could see how the characters develop and
Photographs capture the essence of a moment because the truth shown in an image cannot be questioned. In her novel, The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold uses the language of rhetoric to liberate Abigail from the façade of being a mother and spouse in a picture taken by her daughter, Susie. On the morning of her eleventh birthday, Susie, awake before the rest of the family, discovers her unwrapped birthday present, an instamatic camera, and finds her mother alone in the backyard. The significance of this scene is that it starts the author’s challenge of the false utopia of suburbia in the novel, particularly, the role of women in it.
Furthermore, this tragic event led to the search for closure by Susie Salmon, her family and her friends. The path to closure is filled with many obstacles, and each person reacts differently when facing these obstacles. The death of Susie Salmon leaves a huge impact on Lindsey Salmon, Jack Salmon, Abigail Salmon, Ruth Connors and Ray Singh, not only because of the sorrow that is caused but because it reveals many concealed/unspoken problems which will test the strength of her family and friends. To begin with, Lindsey Salmon struggles abundantly to accept the fact that her older sister is dead. She tries extremely hard to avoid sharing her emotions with others.
First of all, ‘The Lovely Bones’ is about a girl named Susie Salmon and tells a story of how she died and how people get along together and live without her. She was a normal fourteen-year-old girl when she was murdered in the novel 's opening pages. She narrates the rest of her story from heaven, often returning to Earth to watch over her loved ones; mostly family, some friends and Mr. Harvey and the other people he kills. ‘Lovely Bones’ is represents Susie’s body the connection of heaven to earth, earth to heaven. This is main symbolism of this book as Susie. ‘She began to see things without her and the events that her death will influence her in heaven and her family and friends in earth.’ In this passage, the author talks about her life
One world up above where they can watch over the ones below. Susie in The Lovely Bones she has restricted use and effects on earth, because she is in heaven up above. Alice Sebold portrays these events through the view of Susie Salmon, Susie have the ability to know what everyone is thinking. Sebold shows that young love have many differences to those that are also in love, but mature. Susie the narrator, attitude toward the lover of young and old also is different. There is also a unique character in the novel, his name is George Harvey, and his view on love is extremely different.
Jack Salmon, Susie’s father, is most vocal about his sorrow for losing his daughter. However, his initial reaction was much different. Upon hearing that Susie’s ski hat had been found, he immediately retreats upstairs because “he [is] too devastated to reach out to [Abigail] sitting on the carpet…he could not let [her] see him” (Sebold 32). Jack retreats initially because he did not know what to do or say to console his family and he did not want them to see him upset. This first reaction, although it is small, is the first indicator of the marital problems to come. After recovering from the initial shock, Jack decides that he must bring justice for his daughter’s sake and allows this goal to completely engulf his life. He is both an intuitive and instrumental griever, experiencing outbursts of uncontrolled emotions then channeling that emotion into capturing the killer. He focuses his efforts in such an e...