The novel and film The Lovely Bones written by Alice Sebold both contain the same line of, “My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973” (Sebold 1). This line starts off the book and is said by Susie a few scenes into the movie. These words engage the reader or watcher right away by leaving that person with desiring more. While there are some similarities between the novel and film version of The Lovely Bones written by Alice Sebold, it is the differences that make the book stand out more than the movie. In the book, Susie’s father, Jack, knows who her killer is. He finds this out when he helps his neighbor, Mr. Harvey, put together a mat tent. His suspicion is not right away, …show more content…
After Mr. Harvey lures Susie to his “fort” in the ground, she is raped and murdered violently by him. In the novel, this goes into great detail and clarity especially when Susie admits that “He kissed his wet lips down my face and neck and then began to shove his hands up under my shirt, I wept” (14). The book bluntly describes everything that happens to Susie while she is being raped, maybe even too much. Although, when Mr. Harvey kills her, that is only said in one sentence when she declares that “The end came anyway” (15). Later on, the reader also finds out that Susie’s body parts are placed into a bag, which is the clearest the book reveals about her death. In the movie, this scene plays out much differently. All that is seen is when Mr. Harvey lures her into his “fort”. She then tries to escape up a ladder but he pulls her down. Then, she transitions into her heaven after she sees the bloody knife that Mr. Harvey uses to kill her with. There is no mention or even a hint of Susie being raped by this man. Not only does Mr. Harvey rape and kill Susie, but he has several other victims, all young girls, who he also does this to. Knowing that he rapes his victims before killing them shows that he desires power and dominion over others. It reveals that Mr. Harvey wants to have control not only over his life, but over other’s lives as well. This is the reason why
Throughout The Lovely Bones and Speak Alice Sebold and Jessica Sharzer respectively express the emotional journeys and boundaries faced by their characters. Both authors explore this idea through the restriction of their protagonist; however, they both express their journeys with the help of a secondary character. Different approaches are used by the authors, Sebold tells the story from the past whereas Sharzer provides a day-by-day diary of the emotional journey faced by Melinda. Both use the conclusion of their texts to heighten their characters emotional journeys. Sharzer’s ending provides a sense of relief and triumph, and Sebold creates a sense of happiness and acceptance. Aided by devices, notably symbolism, metaphors, narrative
Among the several fiction books written by Alice Sebold, the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year for Adult Fiction Award winning book The Lovely Bones is known as one of her all-time best books of her entire writing career. The protagonist of The Lovely Bones is a young teenage girl, approximately 15 years old, who goes by the name of Susie Salmon and she lives with her younger brother, Bob Salmon; her younger sister, Lindsey Salmon; her mother, Susie so much; and her father call me, Jack Salmon. Susie was brutally raped and murdered by her neighbor Mr. Harvey. Mr. Harvey is a 36-year-old rapist as well as serial killer who primarily targets young teenage girls as his victims and has been on the move after he realizes that he
The main character Susie is the narrator of the novel and she is a teenage girl who has been raped and murdered. In this novel, she tells us all about her as she watches
Like many viruses, unexpressed emotions go into dormancy as they are buried alive and come forth later in much uglier ways. This sentiment correlates in Sebold’s, The Lovely Bones which places 14 year old Susie Salmon gazing upon her grieving family as they deal with the spontaneous loss of herself while obscuring in the knowledge of the ruinous source. With only one tragic flaws being naive, Susie gets left sexually assaulted and viciously murdered within the hands of Mr. Harvey; a common neighbour to the family. The awareness of suspicions rose upon him, yet nothing of solid proof had been able to come forward and convict due to the lack of evidence within the case. As much as Susie urged fighting back to the events placing on earth, nothing
In Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones Susie Salmon, the narrator and protagonist, is murdered. The story takes place over years following her death and tells the story of her and her family as they adjust to life (or lack of, in Susie’s case). At times the situations depicted in the novel are very grim, but along with the more melancholy situations are joyous ones. The family grows and changes in many ways, but one character in particular stands out; Susie’s younger brother, Buckley Salmon. Throughout the course of the novel, Buckley Salmon learns to Forgive.
“The Lovely Bones” is about a girl who was fourteen years old her name was susie. Susie was on her way home from school she walked through the cornfield where she seen her neighbor Mr.Harvey. Mr.Harvey was waiting for her he told her he made a fort under the cornfield. He told susie about it and he said that it was for the kids in the neighborhood. He then said do you want to see it she says I better not I have to be home for dinner. Susie then says just for a minute she gets down to the fort, but then Mr.Harvey says to susie that she can’t leave. That is where susie is raped and murdered. Mr.Harvey then cleans up the evidence and covers back up the fort. Mr.Harvey gets away with susie’s murder and all of the other girls. He never gets caught
In the book “The Lovely Bones” there is a 13-year-old girl named Susie Salmon. She was just a typical middle school student then an older man named Mr. Harvey starts to take an interest in her. Susie believes that the man is a good person due to past relations with her father, so she decides to go with him to his little underground hang out spot where he had convinced her to go. This is where she is then brutally raped and murdered. The killer could have just been a sick person, or he could have had a terrible mental disease that makes him feel as if he isn’t doing anything wrong.
Here is a review over the book “ The Lovely Bones”. In this article I will tell you some good things, and some bad things that I either just didn't get or that I really didn't like. I will first start off with telling you some of the good things that I liked. So good things would be that it starts off by saying who she is and when she had died. It continues to say that it was this date today and Susie starts going off to school and hanging out with friends. She wanted to come home, that wasn't the problem here but it was dark out. She had seen Mr. Harvey her neighbor for a while now had also been out there with her and at that point he snapped into action and lured her in where she would be killed in a dark hole. Also so good things are that
I as well read "The Lovely Bones" this week and would have to agree with you that we had the same interpretation of the book. Throughout the book it becomes very depressing to see Susies family breaking apart over the death of their daughter. Unfortunately for Susie she is unable to do anything other than watch it all happen and spiral out of control. It definatly seems like it is more of a punishment for Susie than anything to see this all happen.
We all know that there were many things that Susie could have done differently like walking away from Mr. Harvey or telling him no and that she wont follow him. She could have taken a different way home and not gone through the cornfield. There are also little things she could have done like putting her books in her bag so that the note wouldn’t haven fallen out.
It kept me constantly wondering the whole time. So many thoughts and questions were running through my mind all at once. The Lovely Bones is about Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl, who was violently murdered, watching her family struggle through, and eventually come to terms with, the tragedy of her death. Sebold paints a picture of Susie’s heaven by describing the surrounding buildings as "...large, squat buildings spread out on dismally landscaped sandy lots, with overhangs and open spaces to make them feel more modern" (Sebold 16). Susie is telling her story from her afterlife, so Sebold creates imagery to place the reader in Susie’s perspective. Sebold also uses a variety of figurative language. One example is "My parents were like sleepwalkers saying yes to his questions, nodding their heads to flowers or speakers" (Sebold 98). Sebold uses this simile to describe how lifeless Susie’s parents feel as they are preparing for her funeral. The use of figurative language brings more emotion to the reader because they can clearly imagine themselves in that exact scene. The main theme in this book is that bad things will happen to the most innocent of us, but we will eventually accept it and move on. At the end, this is evident in Susie saying, “These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it” (Sebold 320). Watching the connections between her loved ones grow on earth without her allows her to accept her death and move on from the human world. She recognizes that these new relationships, stemming from the tragedy of her death, represent that love and hope are still alive in her family. This just goes to show that we all need people to lean on in our darkest days.
The movie “The Lovely Bones” is a remake of the book The Lovely Bones written by Alice Sebold. The book itself was written and published in 2002, but the movie was not directed until 2009. The actor that plays the main character Susie Salmon is named Saoirse Ronan. She is a well known actor and has been in movies
To begin, Sebold exemplifies the bittersweetness held by the truth. This is made apparent when the father of Susie Salmon, a rape victim murdered eight years prior, comes to terms with the fact that his daughter will never return. In doing so,
when you find out how Robbie died . You don’t know who “they” are, therefor you must find out yourself how and why he was killed. Later Robbie is being described as a fine fellow, which gives us a better knowledge in the murder of Robbie . Going further on in the story, Annie finds her dads shotgun hidden under the bed. In one of Annie’s flashbacks she asks something about the gun, where her mother replies: “Two or three times. ” So additionally it has been used about three times, maybe that’s the answer, why the father’s ghost is to paranoid, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t seem to like Annie’s boyfriend, because he reminds him of “them”, those who killed his beloved son. Bernie McGill has on purpose leaved out a whole lot of info, which causes this confusion about the plot. It gives the recipients a chance to think about and interpret the story.
Susie lives in a world where she is beyond life and must quickly come to the realization that she is no longer amongst the living and she must cope with this fact. “‘People grow up by living,’ I said to Franny. ‘I want to live.’ ‘That’s out,’ she said to me. ‘Can we at least watch the living?’ ‘You already do.’” (Sebold 19) She wants to have the opportunity to grow up like a normal girl, yet she cannot because she is dead. Susie is not able to detach herself from her previous life. She misses her family to the extent where she cannot purely accept her death. “‘When the dead are