Near the end of this extract, Sebold uses repetition in Susie's
pleading of "Please." and "Don't." to emphasise Susie's need for
Ruth: Having been the last person Susie touched finds herself
unable talk to her parent's about what she had seen - Susie
running - and so joins Ray in making poetry and expresses
herself there.
Susie's Sister: Like the dad, she busies herself to the point of
risking her life to find out who the murder is.
Mum: Has to move away to find herself. Tells people she only
has two children. Seems to be taking it the worst.
Dad: The dad busies himself, almost to the point of becoming
obsessive with who could be behind Susie's disappearance and
murder. He goes as far as to accuse people with easily
explainable situations, which does provide a bit of comic relief to
the dark narrative.
Ray: Becomes closer to Ruth in light of her death. Expresses
himself in poetry.
1) The Real World: This is a world that the living inhabit. In the
movie it is implied that Susie can have some influence over it, or
example when her father is in the cornfield and we see the two
2) Transit: it is between limbo and the real world. After Susie, the
narrator, is killed the narrate is told "I was still in transit then" to
describe the passing of time between Mr Harvey hiding the
evidence (save for the elbow) and her starting to observe what is
happening in the real world.
"but I never saw her in my heaven" is one of the first looks into what life after death is
like in this novel. At first we may presume the girl has gone to hell, but it always strikes
us as odd considering the girl was young, younger than Susie and the father seemed
kind. Later on we find out the reason for Susie not seeing the girl in her heaven, which
is that their personalities are different, so they may not see one another.
In limbo Mr Harvey's world materialises as his house in which lots of bodies are hidden and
to overcome this and move onto heaven Susie has to find out the story of each of the
bodies there and come to terms with her death.
5) Heaven: the final destination after Susie is satisfied with
Grief is definitely a motif in this as the book is based around the
death of Susie. The characters all have different ways in coping
with grief
Brother: is young so unable to understand the situation but
dreams about Susie. May not be grief.
worlds merge together, but she cannot return to it.
3) Susie's World (limbo): Susie's world is where anything she wants to happen can
happen. However in the movie it is implied that this is not the final stage. Susie
cannot share her world with everyone, but those that are similar in personality to
her, therefore two people may never meet after death. Like Susie and her teacher's
daughter "but I never saw her in my heaven"
4) Mr Harvey's World: His world is something that materialises in
the real world only in the form of murders, and it's a world he
loves to inhabit. When he murders Susie he keeps a pendant
from her necklace as a way of reliving his experience killing her .
For a little while that is enough to keep him satisfied, but in the
movie he begins to feel a "familiar itch" after Susie's sister stalks
him.
everything on Earth and in limbo.
Susie's narrative voice is difficult to distinguish between
heterodiegetic and homodiegetic. This is because she exists in
two realms at times, but in this extract, as she is in the hideout Mr
Harvey made, she is a homodiegetic narrator. Usually, this
would create a level of understanding and an emotional
connection between the narrate and the narrator, but in this case,
it only serves to distance us further. Susie's almost cold nature
stems from the casual semantic field used in her narration,
which makes us unable to connect like we should be able to. For
example: Lack of base adjectives in "But by the time the
Gilberts' dog found my elbow".
It uses a lot of declarative and simple sentences, rather than
exclamative or interrogative, to represent the lack of emotion and
make the narrate feel uneasy. For example: "Mr Harvey, I really
have to get home." This is the point where Susie has had her
epiphany and understands she is in danger, yet she isn't
expressing fear or even anger. Interpretations: Susie is
distancing herself, so that she doesn't feel the physical or
emotional pain of murder and rape. OR, she at least partially
blames herself for her death and is trying to forget it. She can be
seen as a tragic hero, as she fell for Mr Harvey's trap that led to
her own downfall.
the whole extract we read and the majority of the book is an
interior monologue due to it being from Susie's point of view.
It's a recount of a past memory all from inside Susie's head,
making it an interior monologue.
An interior monologue is a long speech said by a person
Grief
Several worlds are shown throughout the story.
While Susie is forced to kiss Mr Harvey she describes his lips as
"wet and blubbery" and remembers that when she kissed Ray his
lips were "chapped". These adjectives are used to show a stark
contrast between the horrible experience and he pleasant one.
Susie refers to several things, for example while she is going
through the horrendous event of rape and murder she thinks of he
moments spent with her family and reflects on the memories she
has with them. Through this we are able to see how much she
loves and cares for them.
Susie and Holly: Holly becomes almost a guardian angel to Susie while she
is going through hard times and teaches her to basics of the limbo world they
are in. At the end of the story they come together to move into Heaven. They
have similar personalities, which is why Holly and Susie are able to talk to
one another in the after life.
Ray and Ruth: with Susie taken from the equation Ray and Ruth
become closer to one another, using each other to fill in the gap
that Susie has left.
Susie's Parents: We see Susie's parents drift apart in the story as they both find different
ways to cope with the murder. The father wants to get to the bottom of what happened,
whereas the mother is unable to return to normal and seems to take on a more emotional
and possibly less productive role in the story as she appears to be falling apart over the
death of her daughter, understandably. So much so that she has to take time away to
cope.
safety and how she is completely and utterly lost and dominated
by Mr Harvey. Again, this appears to be unintentional on Susie's
behalf because of how powerless she is and how she would
probably say anything to save herself. The repetition puts stress
on how great a danger Susie's life is in, and makes the narrate
able to connect on a level of wanting to help, except not being
able to.
Sebold uses American colloquialisms throughout this extract to
demonstrate Susie's innocence and vulnerability. For example:
"loo-loo", "skeevies" and "butch". This seems to be a slip in
Susie's cold and uncaring facade, where she reverts back to her
normal self due to the situation she is in. This, in a way, creates
even more pathos than intentional emotion, as we can see how
hard Susie is trying to sound mature and in control, when in fact
Mr Harvey is the powerful character. This slip-up represents the
theme of nature in this scene, and further contrasts Susie's
innocence to Mr Harvey's will to defy nature shown by the gothic
setting.
In this extract, Susie is
portrayed as
desensitised from her
situation, and shows a
lack of emotion, which
makes it difficult for the
narrate to display any
sympathy towards her.
An interior monologue is a speech or piece of writing
expressing the feeling and emotions of a singular being in
their head
Merging of Worlds
Memories
Relationships
The story is all about relationships and the change in dynamics
after Susie is suddenly taken from the world
Susie, attempts to leave once again but, again, was prevented by Mr
Harvey blocking the door. A little while later, when Mr Harvey
restrains her with an inexorable amount of force, she attempts to
extricate herself from his grasp but fails. It could be argued that she
had another epiphany here as she knew she was about to be raped
and possibly murdered and no-one could hear her scream nor help
her.
Pathos in the Phonetics -> Phonetics is the representation of
extract can be
sound or other speech phenomena. It is a
found occasionally, system of spelling in which each letter
when Sebold uses it represents (constantly) the same spoken
in a way that makes sound. Phonetics also represents speech
it seem sounds by symbols that has only one value. (An
unintentional for An Epiphany is a moment of sudden realisation example of phonetics is the International
Susie. An example of an epiphany is when Susie and Mr Harvey are in Phonetic Alphabet which standardises the
the clubhouse and Susie attempts to leave for a second time,
pronunciation of words from any language so
resulting Mr Harvey to say the line ''I don't know why you think that anyone in any language can pronounce it
you're leaving''. In this moment, Susie came to the sudden properly). An example of phonetics in the lovely
realisation (an Epiphany) that she was in a dangerous situation. bones chapter 1 is when a statement, minor
sentence or phrase is ended with a question
mark - this depicts the voice-sound made by a
character. A second example in the Lovely
Bones is when Susie is being raped, she
reflects on her family and hears her mother
Pathos Epiphany
saying, ''Susie! Susie!'' and ''Dinner is ready''.
The exclamation mark in the previous sentence
shows that the tone and pitch in Susie's mom's
exclamation is very high.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ipuBHZarY
Definition: The power
of evoking feelings of
pity or sorrow.
An Example of Bathos in the Lovely Bones is when Mr
Harvey says ' you're mine now'. While Susie is fighting
Literary Devices in The Lovely Bones Bathos for her life to escape the 'clubhouse' she then goes on
to think about the stereotype that girls that are strong
are considered as lesbians.
Interior
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgfZ7hcyxOM Another example of Bathos is when Susie is talking about
the niceness of the clubhouse. Although the topic then
Monologue Pathos is an
appeal to
suddenly changes through discourse markers earn the
Gilbert's dog found Susie's elbow.
emotion, and is
Motif
a way of
convincing an
audience of an
argument by
creating an
A distinctive idea, especially a theme emotional
elaborated on in music or a piece of response.
Susie uses slang known as colloquialisms in chapter one
literature. when she is in Mr Harvey's built place underground which
he called a 'clubhouse' for kids. Susie describes Mr Harvey
as 'loo loo' which isn't the sort of language people usually
use. It shows that Susie is still a child as it is the sort of
word a child would say.
Catharsis Definition: Relates to releasing and
thereby providing relief from strong or
repressed emotions. Register
Link Titlehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L16i2enJA_w
An example of Catharsis in the Lovely Bones Definition: Register uses linguistics and has a
is the murder/rape scene where Susie formality scale. It is the style of speaking or writing in
slang. It can be used in particular circumstances or
questions Mr Harvey repeatedly about why social situations.
he told her to remove her clothes. He then
decided to enforce himself upon her by being
violent towards her - this is his release of
emotions upon Susie and overall, his fantasy
We can say, with certainty, that Harvey's childhood was almost the complete opposite of Susie's. In Mr
of raping and murdering young girls. Harvey, we see a yearning for an idealized home, and family, in his chosen profession: building
dollhouses, idealized homes in miniature. His success gives him what his father's building couldn't,
financial security. Harvey makes enough to buy that family home in the suburbs, but he has no intention
of filling it with a family of his own. Rather, it becomes the disguise which allows him to infiltrate the
'fantasy' realm he covets.This therefore represents Catharsis, because Mr Harvey finds relief in the
objects he never had as a child.