Even though rape is extremely traumatizing and leaves feelings of vulnerability, society sees rape as a minor issue that is not important. Rape is serious and should not be taken lightly, society should be more open with talking about rape, and society needs to stop making rape a joke. The Lovely Bones has impacted society in a huge way. It opens up the mind to the bigger issues faced every day. Although people tend to shy away from personal, sensitive topics such as rape, it is beneficial to be informed of what goes on in society. Rape has inspired many different forms of art expressed through song, paintings and other literature. It allows the mind to open, leaving it vulnerable to its inner emotions and its dangerous effects. The Lovely …show more content…
In The Lovely Bones, it follows the story of a girl named Susie Salmon. She starts off the book discussing how easily she can remember small details such as the penguin living in the snow globe to the tragic day when she was raped. She was raped by her neighbor Mr. Harvey, a creepy, middle aged man who grew beautiful flowers and had even interacted with her parents; proposing no threat. She’s walking home from school late one day and decides to take a shortcut home through the abandoned corn field when Mr. Harvey asks if she’d like to see his underground, ‘secret club house’ he’s made for the kids. She reluctantly agrees feeling a sense of danger but ignores it. As soon as they are inside, he tells her to take off her clothes to check if she is a virgin because God only wants ‘good girls’. She describes how her body was there but her spirit was all over the room, in her thoughts. Mr. Harvey makes Susie tell him she loves him before he slits her throat with a razor. The rest of the book focuses on Susie watching her parents in denial over her death, especially her father who took it the hardest. She watches the effects her death left in her family on Earth while trying to cope with her own death and trying to find a way to get to a happy, peaceful heaven. As soon as The Lovely Bones was published, everyone wanted to know the inspiration behind the book. The author, …show more content…
But now Alice's courageous singularity kicked in. With extraordinary determination, Sebold returned to college and enrolled in the creative-writing program taught by Raymond Carver and his wife, the poet Tess Gallagher, who both effectively babysat a young woman in the midst of a full-blown crack-up. Slowly, they coaxed her, through her writing, to begin to confront her fate. She found the power to move on and create something amazing out of it; thus The Lovely Bones was created. The Lovely Bones was later adapted into a film directed by Peter Jackson The film was very well directed and followed very closely to the storyline. The movie did leave out certain scenes such as Mr. Harvey raping Susie for obvious reasons. Even though the rape scene was not as graphic, it did give this uncomfortable vibe and made it hard to watch. The movie does give a great visual for people to better understand however. The movie made the audience open their eyes to a firsthand experience of what the victim goes through no matter how painful to watch. The movie received mixed reviews. David Ansen, a journalist for Newsweek gives a review for the movie having a mixed opinion.
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,
The Lovely Bones’s combination of themes work together to expose the raw emotion of a family in pain over the death of a precious loved one. The first and most significant theme to be presented in the novel is that of mortality. Throughout the novel, as Susie looks back over her violent death and its effects on her family, she makes a point that when someone dies, that person's desires and needs pass over with them into the afterlife (Thomas). For example, from watching her sister and Ruth Connor, she realizes that the concept of love is something she still wishes she could have, even in heaven. Her sister Lindsey meets a boy by the name of Samuel, and Ruth grows closer to Susie's first real crush, Ray Singh. These observations by Susie almost
Death: the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism. It is scientific. Straight down to the facts. Something is born, it lives, and it dies. The cycle never stops. But what toll does death take on those around it? The literary world constantly attempts to answer this vital question. Characters from a wide realm of novels experience the loss of a loved one, and as they move on, grief affects their every step. In The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, the roles of Lindsey, Abigail, and Ruth all exhibit the effect of dealing with death over time; the result is a sizable amount of change which benefits a person’s spirit.
Susan Brownmiller’s excerpt Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape written in 1975 explores rape. It argues that from the beginning of time men had an advantage over women because their genitalia can serve as a weapon, which, in turn, generates constant fear. “Rape provides a sufficient threat to keep all women in a constant state of intimidation, forever conscious of the knowledge that the biological tool must be held in awe for it may turn to weapon with sudden swiftness borne of harmful intent”(Brownmiller, 312). Females are subjected to the harsh reality of rape at a young age through fairytales such as Little Red Riding Hood. Stories like these emphasize how weak women are and how heroic, brave and strong men are. Susan Brownmiller believes that the way to destroy the idea that “you can’t thread a moving needle,” and “no women can be raped against her will” by spreading awareness about rape and how it is a moral wrongdoing and punishable under the
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.
...to the fact that sex is brought up at such a young age and they do not know how to deal with their sexual needs and wants. For instance, Bone had sexualized dreams of where she was able to rebel against Glen. She said, “I loved these fantasies, even though I was sure they were a terrible thing. They had to be, they were self-centered and they made me have shuddering organisms. In then, I was very special.” (113) Along with the dreams, Bone and her younger sister Reese performed in sexual acts together, calling them “private games”. However, Bone lost a part of her childhood when she was raped at the age of 12. She did not have a normal life and was forced to perform sexual acts with Glen. This was another influence that changed who she was as a whole. She did not get to be a carefree child. Bone had to grow up when she realized she was not protected in her family.
With the stereotypes and myths that are seen throughout the areas, we are able to see how things make a difference when it comes to how things are portrayed. Victims of rape should not blame themselves or see the situation as a joke, which is proven in Patricia Lockwood’s poem, “Rape Joke”. She uses a very unique style of a story-like poem to tell a story of an instance that could happen and how to see the situation afterwards. There is the aftermath of how victims feel and act after going through the traumatic experience of a rape. Lockwood is able to portray that experience in detail in her poem “Rape Joke.”
Society needs to start taking responsibility for the actions of its people. Rape is very real, and is a major problem in America. The existence of rape culture needs to be recognized and combated to make the world safer for everyone. Rather than teaching boys not to rape, and girls not to get raped, it’s time to teach everyone to value each other.
The current mistreatment of rape on Game of Thrones (2011) encourages damaging rape stereotypes. Rape in fantasy setting is nothing new. If anything, it is the norm. Most fantasy settings are loosely based on the Middle Ages, in which rape was prevalent. Some writers even claim it would be "dishonest" to not show rape in their stories. (Hibberd & Martin, 2015, para. 7) There is nothing outright wrong with portraying rape, but it is becoming increasingly common to simply include rape for shock value, and then moving on with no real consequences.
Females from a young age are told that men are strong and women are weak and should just submit to their needs. Men are praised if they abuse and exploit women. The stereotypical female and male is something men strive for and women easily fall into. Women are influenced to be submissive and just to feel what the guy tells them to feel. Rape and sexual assault are deemed “cool” and the media influences women to be a submissive sex object. A woman 's body, the one thing she possesses in the most intimate form, is collateral damage (Katie J). Tristan Bridges, a writer for the Society Reflections, states “It 's not a new argument to suggest that many elements of what feminist scholars refer to as “rape culture” are embedded in seemingly pleasurable elements of pop
It portrays an emotion that the intended audience should know well, a deep sadness, due to the fact that sexual assault is a traumatic experience that can take a severe emotional toll on victims. Moreover, the shadow that hides the young woman’s face gives her a sense of shame, which is another emotion that many sexual assault victims likely deal with. This is one of the reasons why sexual assault victims should seek help. By reaching out to a professional, they can get rid of the highly detrimental emotions that they have been dealing with in silence. Overall, the image makes a clear pathological appeal due to the fact that it is clear the young woman is unhappy, which shows that the topic is emotional to some and should be thoughtfully considered, and also gives the intended audience a feeling they can relate to. Thus, the image is effective for the intended audience because it is realistic and relatable, leaving the audience with a sense that they are not alone in their struggle and that the emotions they have are a natural response to being sexually
Rape and sexual assault are one and the same. They both make the victim feel worthless and it is a grotesque topic. Two novels that include this topic are To Kill a Mockingbird and The Lovely Bones. In To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee, Mayella Ewell claims to be raped by a black man. In addition, Alice Sebold’s novel, The Lovely Bones, Susie Salmon is abducted, raped, and then murdered in the first chapter of the book. Some critics say that the content of these novels should be banned, but in this present day in age, topics more grotesque are discussed between peers than the topics in these novels (“Review” 3). Harper Lee’s rape content is not as graphic as the content in Alice Sebold’s. The strong contrast of Lee's and Sebold's treatments of sexual assault in their novels is clearly evidenced by their plot, dialogue, and reviews.
Is anyone truly a stranger to nightmares? Has anyone not woken up in a feverish sweat with a racing pulse or pounding heart? Whose eyes have never wildly searched their room for the phantoms of a dream? Now, what if the familiar consolation of learning it was all in your head never came? How do you wake up from a nightmare that is, in fact, a reality? I think I’m getting ahead of myself. What I mean to say is, I was raped, and rape is a nightmare.
Usually in a rape, more focus is placed on the rapist while the victim is forgotten and criticized by society for letting it happen. Society often fails to understand what the victim is going through, because in order to understand a rape victim, you must either have experienced it first hand, or learned about it, which most people do not. Recent research has established that rape and other forms of sexual assault have a traumatic and often enduring effect on the victim. For example, Burgess and Holmstrom (1974) found that rape victims experience a “rape trauma syndrome, consisting of an acute stage where the primary response is fear, followed by a reorganization stage, characterized by phobias, insomnia, sexual dysfunctions and other major changes in lifestyle” (Ruch, Chandler and Harter 248). Much trauma occurs as a result of shock; and rape victims go into shock while experiencing being raped because at the time they may not even know what’s happening and may even be in denial that it happened. Their denial supports our own, and choosing to ignore the victims’ side of the story, we are, in fact ignoring them when they are in a state of distress. Failing to acknowledge the rape victims shows how little we care about them and their state of
On the surface, The Rape of the Lock is a retelling of an episode that caused a feud between two families in the form of an epic. One might believe that in his version, Alexander Pope portrayed the women of the story as shallow, vain little girls, however on a deeper level the women are crucial to the story. Aside from not being as helpless as they appear, each woman possesses a different kind of power that contributes to their character greatly. Rather than being the conceited and shallow figures expected of the time period, the women in The Rape of the Lock posses more power than meets the eye.