Charley Fite
Professor Brown
U-write 1103-022
March 11, 2015
The Lovely Bones – Prompt 3
Anytime a story starts with the famous phrase, “Once upon a time,” that is a surefire sign that once all of the problems in the story have been solved and once the dragon has been slain the story will end happily with the characters riding off into the sunset. In society we have become so accustomed to books or movies with these happy endings that whenever we encounter a story that ends with a character dying or not winning the first place trophy, despite all of their hard work, we get angry at the story and remain in a bad mood for a night or four. In, The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, we are faced upfront with hearing that the main character throughout the book has been brutally murdered, which immediately gives most readers the impression that something good must come at the end of story since it started so gloomily.
I believe that we expect happy endings because we as humans understand hardships in life and the incredible feeling we get when things end nicely for us. This causes us to take pity on the characters in stories that are encountering problems because we want them to have that happy feeling as well. Stories have a way of enwrapping us in the development of a character so that we treat them as literal human beings in our head and once they encounter hardships we treat them as if they were our friends and hope that they do not suffer forever. If a story does end with the guy getting the popular girl, or the person experiences a miracle and coming back to life, it fulfills us inside knowing that the story ended nicely and there is nothing else to take pity on. A happy ending is all anyone wants in life so it makes sense that they would want that same happiness for others.
In The Lovely Bones we were informed in the first paragraph of the horrid murder of Susie Salmon so it became quickly obvious that there would not be a happy ending where Susie’s body parts magically piece back together and she lives again. However, that does not mean the book ended badly. Even though Susie was still in heaven at the end of the book I still feel that my hopes for the story had been fulfilled. After many years of pain the family and friends of Susie finally figured out their lives’ and became more at piece with her death. Lindsey was engaged, Susie’s mother was back in her family’s life after years of disappearing, and one of the most satisfying things for readers is the “tragic” death of Mr. Harvey, the sick-minded murderer. Despite all of the hardships the characters faced while grieving Susie, the ending was happier for them all especially for Susie herself. By the end of the book she had finally come to terms with being dead and she got “promoted” to the Big Heaven that was a much happier place for her.
If there were three words that could be used to describe this ending I would choose satisfying, deep, and sustaining. Even though the story’s happy ending was not the most common type of happy ending it still met at least my criteria for happiness, so don’t believe that readers should to go to bed crying after realizing that not all happy endings similar to ones in fairy tales.
The Lovely Bones – Prompt 10
If The Lovely Bones had been written from a different perspective there would be very different meanings received by the readers. The fact that Susie explains her story from her own personal view puts so much more meaning into her circumstances and fully emphasizes how she felt at different moments while she looked down on or was alive on Earth.
Since this book was written from Susie’s perspective it allowed us as readers to know what she was thinking and feeling throughout the story whether it be during her cruel murdering or watching her family and friends fall apart after her death. We get to feel close to Susie by seeing it through her eyes, we get to feel pity for her, feel happiness for her. By doing this, the author makes this book easy to get attached to because we have become personally involved in Susie’s experiences. We as readers get to see and feel Susie’s pain as she watches her family carry on life just down the road from where Mr. Harvey brutally killed her. We are able to see inside of Mr. Harvey’s mind and what he thinks and feels because of Susie’s supernatural power to be able to do so. This book would not be the masterpiece it is if Susie was not the mind behind the voice.
Had Susie not been the narrator of this book the reader would not have been able to become as attached to the story as well as the meaning to her death. If another person had told the story of Susie looking down on Earth it would not mean as much to a reader because it wasn’t a person-to-person interaction. We wouldn’t be as impacted by Susie’s thoughts and discoveries had they not come from the person that actually experienced being murdered and going to heaven. Although, the story would be given even less meaning if the narrator had been omniscient and neutral. If that were the case there would be no more Susie once she went to heaven and the story would be based on just the family and friends down on earth and how they deal with the death of a loved one. The drive to keep reading would be lost because the person that mattered the most in the story, Susie, would no longer be the main character.
Seeing that the book and movie on The Lovely Bones has become such a success, that makes it apparent that the author made the correct choice in placing Susie as the narrator for the story. She was able to convey the true feelings of a person that had been killed by creating a main character that was dead and in heaven, and that is part of the awe actor that draws people to keep reading this book.
Five Needful Things – The Lovely Bones Prompt
Throughout the book, The Lovely Bones, there are many objects that get brought up continually because each object has a certain meaning to it that plays an important role to the story. Losing a child to murder is a tragic event but even Susie Salmon’s father is able to find comfort in objects that she used to own.
The charm bracelet that belonged to Susie while she was murdered had an important meaning; it represented the piece of her that was still on Earth. Mr. Harvey found the charm bracelet after he had murdered Susie and he tried to get rid of it by throwing it in a future lake. Mr. Harvey knew that if the bracelet was found then it would be identified, as Susie’s and he needed the thought of her murder to be out of his mind so he could continue on with life without getting caught. However, eventually the bracelet was found by someone, thereby representing Susie’s fight to still be remembered on Earth and that she will not be forgotten.
After years in Heaven Susie eventually realized the limitations she had on being able to communicate on Earth. She was determined to see her family become happy and Mr. Harvey live a miserable life. Susie’s emotions eventually broke through to Earth and after hoping an icicle would fall on Mr. Harvey, one actually did and ultimately caused his death. The icicle represented Susie’s revenge on Mr. Harvey and her determination to see justice. This was a big break through for Susie, as she was finally coming to full terms with being in heaven.
Shortly after Susie had entered heaven Mr. Harvey was trying to clean up the murder scene and dispose of her body so that he would not be caught. He hid Susie’s body placing her body parts in a safe, and placing the safe in the town sink hole that supposedly swallowed anything that was put in it. The safe with her body parts represents Susie’s death and the secret of what Mr. Harvey had done. By placing it in the safe and sink hole all evidence of Mr. Harvey’s DNA on Susie’s body would be hidden from authorities and stopping her murder being solved, until much later at least.
It was hinted during the book that Mr. Harvey had killed many other girls and women before Susie. He never appeared to have an issue with moving on to the next victim, however he did like to remember them and all of the terrible things he had done. At one point during the book, ironically with the help of Susie’s father, Mr. Harvey built a ceremonial tent for his dead wife. The readers come to find out though that the tent is for a Mr. Harvey to meditate and think about his victims. The tent represents all of the girls Mr. Harvey has murdered and how that burden will always be with him even though he does not regret his decisions.
Susie’s father was the first one to have suspicions of Mr. Harvey being the killer, and he had appeared to be the person who had been devastated by her death the most. He had a close relationship to Susie and had frequent breakdowns when thinking of her death. For example, her father once smashed the ship-in-a-bottle collection that he had because Susie had helped him make them. The ship-in-a-bottle represents the relationship that Susie and Mr. Salmon had when she was alive. Mr. Salmon always had hope that Susie would still be alive but once he came to terms that she was dead he had an emotional breakdown. Many people were affected by Susie Salmon’s death but the memories that people have of her is what keeps her alive.
Human Experience – The Lovely Bones Prompt
The death of a loved one has different effects on different people that can ultimately change a human’s view on things in their life. The death of Susie Salmon in, The Lovely Bones caused her family to cope with her death various ways that show a difference in growth in each character’s human experience.
The human experience can be defined as a personal experience where someone encounters the struggles of life and comes out of the situation even stronger and learns a lesson from it. I believe that a character in the book that showed the most growth by the end of the book and most accurately portrays the ideal characteristics of a person that has gone through a human experience is Susie Salmon herself. After Susie’s murder she had to deal with the panic and come to the realization that she really was dead and would no longer be alive on Earth. It is safe to say that Susie experienced quiet a struggle near the end of her life and it takes a lot of maturing for Susie to reach the state she is at the end of the book. By the end of the book Susie has come to full terms with her death and she is able to let go of Earth and accept the fact that she is in Heaven and that her family has finally reached happiness. All Susie wanted was to see her family happy again and that is a perfect example of Susie’s growth.
One character that did not encounter much growth through the human experience would be Susie’s mother, Abigail. Mrs. Salmon was very heartbroken by Susie’s death but the way she let Susie’s death affect the rest of her life suggests that she did not go through quite the human experience that Susie did. Abigail eventually began cheating on her husband with the detective for the murder investigation, which shows that Abigail was portraying signs of true weakness, especially since her daughter had just been killed and her family needed her support as well. To make it even worse, Abigail eventually left the family all together and flew to another state. It wasn’t until years later that Abigail eventually came back to the family whom she had deserted. She tried to block Susie and the family out of her mind so that she would not need to deal with the pain. This does not show much growth in Abigail and suggests that she did not fall under the human experience category as well as Susie and Mr. Salmon did.
Overall I believe that the text in the book did a fairly good job at showing the growth of the characters in the story. Shortly after Susie’s disappearance and murder the family and friends were in a state of panic as they coped with the loss of someone they either knew or cared about. By the end of the book the author made sure to make it noticeable that the characters had grown through the situation and helped elevate others. Lindsay was happy and engaged to be married, Susie’s father had become used to his life without Susie, and Susie’s mother had finally realized she needed to stay with her family. The book ended much more happily than it started and that is the evidence that there was growth in the characters throughout the story as they came to terms with Susie’s death. Susie herself made it to the “big heaven” and she was excited to see that her family was able to find love and happiness again as they go through life and the human experience.
Professor Brown
U-write 1103-022
March 11, 2015
The Lovely Bones – Prompt 3
Anytime a story starts with the famous phrase, “Once upon a time,” that is a surefire sign that once all of the problems in the story have been solved and once the dragon has been slain the story will end happily with the characters riding off into the sunset. In society we have become so accustomed to books or movies with these happy endings that whenever we encounter a story that ends with a character dying or not winning the first place trophy, despite all of their hard work, we get angry at the story and remain in a bad mood for a night or four. In, The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, we are faced upfront with hearing that the main character throughout the book has been brutally murdered, which immediately gives most readers the impression that something good must come at the end of story since it started so gloomily.
I believe that we expect happy endings because we as humans understand hardships in life and the incredible feeling we get when things end nicely for us. This causes us to take pity on the characters in stories that are encountering problems because we want them to have that happy feeling as well. Stories have a way of enwrapping us in the development of a character so that we treat them as literal human beings in our head and once they encounter hardships we treat them as if they were our friends and hope that they do not suffer forever. If a story does end with the guy getting the popular girl, or the person experiences a miracle and coming back to life, it fulfills us inside knowing that the story ended nicely and there is nothing else to take pity on. A happy ending is all anyone wants in life so it makes sense that they would want that same happiness for others.
In The Lovely Bones we were informed in the first paragraph of the horrid murder of Susie Salmon so it became quickly obvious that there would not be a happy ending where Susie’s body parts magically piece back together and she lives again. However, that does not mean the book ended badly. Even though Susie was still in heaven at the end of the book I still feel that my hopes for the story had been fulfilled. After many years of pain the family and friends of Susie finally figured out their lives’ and became more at piece with her death. Lindsey was engaged, Susie’s mother was back in her family’s life after years of disappearing, and one of the most satisfying things for readers is the “tragic” death of Mr. Harvey, the sick-minded murderer. Despite all of the hardships the characters faced while grieving Susie, the ending was happier for them all especially for Susie herself. By the end of the book she had finally come to terms with being dead and she got “promoted” to the Big Heaven that was a much happier place for her.
If there were three words that could be used to describe this ending I would choose satisfying, deep, and sustaining. Even though the story’s happy ending was not the most common type of happy ending it still met at least my criteria for happiness, so don’t believe that readers should to go to bed crying after realizing that not all happy endings similar to ones in fairy tales.
The Lovely Bones – Prompt 10
If The Lovely Bones had been written from a different perspective there would be very different meanings received by the readers. The fact that Susie explains her story from her own personal view puts so much more meaning into her circumstances and fully emphasizes how she felt at different moments while she looked down on or was alive on Earth.
Since this book was written from Susie’s perspective it allowed us as readers to know what she was thinking and feeling throughout the story whether it be during her cruel murdering or watching her family and friends fall apart after her death. We get to feel close to Susie by seeing it through her eyes, we get to feel pity for her, feel happiness for her. By doing this, the author makes this book easy to get attached to because we have become personally involved in Susie’s experiences. We as readers get to see and feel Susie’s pain as she watches her family carry on life just down the road from where Mr. Harvey brutally killed her. We are able to see inside of Mr. Harvey’s mind and what he thinks and feels because of Susie’s supernatural power to be able to do so. This book would not be the masterpiece it is if Susie was not the mind behind the voice.
Had Susie not been the narrator of this book the reader would not have been able to become as attached to the story as well as the meaning to her death. If another person had told the story of Susie looking down on Earth it would not mean as much to a reader because it wasn’t a person-to-person interaction. We wouldn’t be as impacted by Susie’s thoughts and discoveries had they not come from the person that actually experienced being murdered and going to heaven. Although, the story would be given even less meaning if the narrator had been omniscient and neutral. If that were the case there would be no more Susie once she went to heaven and the story would be based on just the family and friends down on earth and how they deal with the death of a loved one. The drive to keep reading would be lost because the person that mattered the most in the story, Susie, would no longer be the main character.
Seeing that the book and movie on The Lovely Bones has become such a success, that makes it apparent that the author made the correct choice in placing Susie as the narrator for the story. She was able to convey the true feelings of a person that had been killed by creating a main character that was dead and in heaven, and that is part of the awe actor that draws people to keep reading this book.
Five Needful Things – The Lovely Bones Prompt
Throughout the book, The Lovely Bones, there are many objects that get brought up continually because each object has a certain meaning to it that plays an important role to the story. Losing a child to murder is a tragic event but even Susie Salmon’s father is able to find comfort in objects that she used to own.
The charm bracelet that belonged to Susie while she was murdered had an important meaning; it represented the piece of her that was still on Earth. Mr. Harvey found the charm bracelet after he had murdered Susie and he tried to get rid of it by throwing it in a future lake. Mr. Harvey knew that if the bracelet was found then it would be identified, as Susie’s and he needed the thought of her murder to be out of his mind so he could continue on with life without getting caught. However, eventually the bracelet was found by someone, thereby representing Susie’s fight to still be remembered on Earth and that she will not be forgotten.
After years in Heaven Susie eventually realized the limitations she had on being able to communicate on Earth. She was determined to see her family become happy and Mr. Harvey live a miserable life. Susie’s emotions eventually broke through to Earth and after hoping an icicle would fall on Mr. Harvey, one actually did and ultimately caused his death. The icicle represented Susie’s revenge on Mr. Harvey and her determination to see justice. This was a big break through for Susie, as she was finally coming to full terms with being in heaven.
Shortly after Susie had entered heaven Mr. Harvey was trying to clean up the murder scene and dispose of her body so that he would not be caught. He hid Susie’s body placing her body parts in a safe, and placing the safe in the town sink hole that supposedly swallowed anything that was put in it. The safe with her body parts represents Susie’s death and the secret of what Mr. Harvey had done. By placing it in the safe and sink hole all evidence of Mr. Harvey’s DNA on Susie’s body would be hidden from authorities and stopping her murder being solved, until much later at least.
It was hinted during the book that Mr. Harvey had killed many other girls and women before Susie. He never appeared to have an issue with moving on to the next victim, however he did like to remember them and all of the terrible things he had done. At one point during the book, ironically with the help of Susie’s father, Mr. Harvey built a ceremonial tent for his dead wife. The readers come to find out though that the tent is for a Mr. Harvey to meditate and think about his victims. The tent represents all of the girls Mr. Harvey has murdered and how that burden will always be with him even though he does not regret his decisions.
Susie’s father was the first one to have suspicions of Mr. Harvey being the killer, and he had appeared to be the person who had been devastated by her death the most. He had a close relationship to Susie and had frequent breakdowns when thinking of her death. For example, her father once smashed the ship-in-a-bottle collection that he had because Susie had helped him make them. The ship-in-a-bottle represents the relationship that Susie and Mr. Salmon had when she was alive. Mr. Salmon always had hope that Susie would still be alive but once he came to terms that she was dead he had an emotional breakdown. Many people were affected by Susie Salmon’s death but the memories that people have of her is what keeps her alive.
Human Experience – The Lovely Bones Prompt
The death of a loved one has different effects on different people that can ultimately change a human’s view on things in their life. The death of Susie Salmon in, The Lovely Bones caused her family to cope with her death various ways that show a difference in growth in each character’s human experience.
The human experience can be defined as a personal experience where someone encounters the struggles of life and comes out of the situation even stronger and learns a lesson from it. I believe that a character in the book that showed the most growth by the end of the book and most accurately portrays the ideal characteristics of a person that has gone through a human experience is Susie Salmon herself. After Susie’s murder she had to deal with the panic and come to the realization that she really was dead and would no longer be alive on Earth. It is safe to say that Susie experienced quiet a struggle near the end of her life and it takes a lot of maturing for Susie to reach the state she is at the end of the book. By the end of the book Susie has come to full terms with her death and she is able to let go of Earth and accept the fact that she is in Heaven and that her family has finally reached happiness. All Susie wanted was to see her family happy again and that is a perfect example of Susie’s growth.
One character that did not encounter much growth through the human experience would be Susie’s mother, Abigail. Mrs. Salmon was very heartbroken by Susie’s death but the way she let Susie’s death affect the rest of her life suggests that she did not go through quite the human experience that Susie did. Abigail eventually began cheating on her husband with the detective for the murder investigation, which shows that Abigail was portraying signs of true weakness, especially since her daughter had just been killed and her family needed her support as well. To make it even worse, Abigail eventually left the family all together and flew to another state. It wasn’t until years later that Abigail eventually came back to the family whom she had deserted. She tried to block Susie and the family out of her mind so that she would not need to deal with the pain. This does not show much growth in Abigail and suggests that she did not fall under the human experience category as well as Susie and Mr. Salmon did.
Overall I believe that the text in the book did a fairly good job at showing the growth of the characters in the story. Shortly after Susie’s disappearance and murder the family and friends were in a state of panic as they coped with the loss of someone they either knew or cared about. By the end of the book the author made sure to make it noticeable that the characters had grown through the situation and helped elevate others. Lindsay was happy and engaged to be married, Susie’s father had become used to his life without Susie, and Susie’s mother had finally realized she needed to stay with her family. The book ended much more happily than it started and that is the evidence that there was growth in the characters throughout the story as they came to terms with Susie’s death. Susie herself made it to the “big heaven” and she was excited to see that her family was able to find love and happiness again as they go through life and the human experience.