The Lovely Bones Short Story

By-and-By

Death is inevitable. Amy Bloom, author of “By-and-By”, starts her short story by saying that “every death is violent.” Very much resembling this story, The Lovely Bones follows a young teenage girl who is abducted by death, due to a gruesome man with a thirst for death. It is in both stories that parallel in the antagonists and the story itself can be seen. It is for that reason that this short story compares with The Lovely Bones.

Eugene Trask, the antagonist of “By-and-By”, is a nineteen year old boy who is on a horrific rampage, which eventually leads to Anne Warburg’s demise. Parallel to Eugene, Mr. Harvey, the antagonist of The Lovely Bones, is a sexual predator, a pervert, and a child molester who brutally murdered Susie Salmon. The two stories link together, because death plays its part and the two protagonists of each story are brutally attacked and murdered. Though Eugene Trask is half the age of Mr. Harvey, their characteristics remain the same. Anne Warburg’s death in Amy Bloom’s short story was horrendous; she was raped, stabbed multiple times through the heart, and thrown down a mine shaft until her “flesh turns to a black thick cream.” Her innocence allows for a much stronger plot, because her death is not meant to be. She did not deserve to go through such a death, which is why the plot is stronger and more emotional. No innocent girl or child in general, should have to face such a wicked person and be slain in a monstrous manner. The difference between Eugene and Mr. Harvey is that Eugene confessed to his crime and “drew [the police] maps” for the location of Anne’s rotting corpse; Mr. Harvey, on the other hand, was much too fearful of his penalty, that he retreated to a safer location, leaving his guil...

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...ots at the bottom of a mineshaft. In either case “It’s very dark where [they are]…”

Death awaits the people, and it can be highly unpredictable. It could show mercy on its victims or it could lash out at them with everything it has. Eugene Trask of “By-and-By” and Mr. Harvey are two bloodthirsty men seeking any innocent soul they can find so they may murder them. They are the representations of evil; they are “demons” which have caused pain and suffering on their victims and the families of said victims. Eugene Trask’s murder of Anne Warburg and Teddy, as well as Mr. Harvey’s murder of Susie Salmon both bring out the wickedness that can sometimes be seen in the world. Their brutality used on their victims, as well as the location of their victims’ deaths parallel each other in the sense that the locations are both ironic and their killing spree is closely related.