Plot Analysis of 'The Lovely Bones' Novel

The Lovely Bones is a 2002 novel by American writer Alice Sebold. It is the story of a teenage girl who, after being raped and murdered, watches from her personal Heaven as her family and friends struggle to move on with their lives while she comes to terms with her own death. The novel received loads of critical praise and became a bestseller immediately after it came out. The book is a determined reiteration of innocence, a teeth-gritted celebration of something not mutilated or shattered in any way, but makes regular occurrence: the notion of the North American family, though it is dysfunctional, but pure and good nonetheless. It's a crucial celebration, that is often vivid, sometimes moving, uproarious and sweet, but that has to be treated with a little unease, especially when considering how the narrative is presented with its villain, the outsider, who is identified by Susie's family by instinct after they simply perceive the man to be a little odd, and along with odd, malevolent. 'Why, my father wondered, did people trust the police so much? Why not trust instinct? It was Mr. Harvey and he knew it.' the readers did too, because Susie told them so on page six - and this an accomplished fact of knowing who's bad and who's good

The novel's title is taken from a quotation at the story's conclusion when Susie ponders her friends' and family's newfound strength after her death Late in the novel, when her family is celebrating together, Susie finally reveals to the readers what the title means to her:

These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence [...]. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. (23.97)

This is a very abstract quote, something that is expected from a ghost, but when followed closely. It is clear that Susie is saying that a) she sees her loved ones and their stories as the bones of a body of earthly happiness, of life; and b) she can stop anxiously hovering over them because they are going to be perfectly fine.

But, the sentence that follows the above complicates matters. Susie says,

“The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future.“(23.97)

We've thought about this a lot, even had a few meetings about it, and have come to the conclusion that Susie is waiting for the day when her loved ones are all dead with her; then the 'body' will be 'whole.' Sounds morbid, but that's natural for the dead. We think it's a good thing. In Susie's expanding understanding of the world, human life is really short and is followed by a seemingly eternal afterlife. So, death is no longer something to be feared, it is counterintuitive as it is only the aftermath of life and existence as we know it

Yet, no matter how hard she tries, Susie can not help wanting herself and her loved ones in the same place. Hence, her wishes for their deaths, as well as for their happy lives. She knows she can't go back to them, so they have to come to her.

Plot

The plot layout is very significant to the way the story unravels because it illustrates exactly how the events follow. The story is given much more energy and flow when it is told by a girl in heaven a girl who is ‘trapped’ in her own personalized heaven because she’s holding on to the past. The story is written in a very interesting way where Susie is looking down on her family, and being able to see everything they are doing. Whenever something occurs, she adds on to it by telling a very distinct memory or a story. It’s like looking inside a person’s head. Because the book gives such precise details that draw an image and feeling.

The significance of the plot having started with Susie telling the readers that she's in heaven indicates a loss of innocence and in a way warns the readers of what is yet to come next in the chapter, it is in other words, a warning. It is an impactful start that shows the readers what is to come. The plot is written in this form because the author wanted it to hold intellectual value in the reader's head after reading the story.

Though this story is not based on a true story, there are hundreds of thousands of people like Mr. Harvey. People who prey on little girls and make them feel uncomfortable in their own homes and Ms. Seblod wanted to shine a light on how these dirty people are getting away with acts such as these. This is also a very good warning to younger women who are put in these situations, it is like a book that will burn in certain women’s memories itching at the back of their brains. A bittersweet reminder that they are not the only ones going through this. The author really wanted to focus on that because when she was a little girl, something similar had happened to her and she wanted to shed light and normalize this topic so that when it happens to other girls they feel comfortable talking about it with a trusted adult.

Protagonist

Susie Salmon is a 14-year-old girl, who is described as having a lot of 'spunk'(Alice Sebold pg.7) by her father. The young, energetic photographer that was always very hungry for knowledge. She was raped and murdered on December 6, 1973. As a fresh new spirit in heaven, Susie gives us a deep understanding of each family member in her family and how they are dealing with her death. Susie does not want to be dead, but she has to learn to deal with the fact that she is actually gone and has to say good-bye to the people she loves.

When Susie is on Earth, her dreams are fairly typical for a well-adjusted, talented girl. High school is the big deal in her immediate plans. In her Earthly life, she sees the mediocrity of junior high fading into the past, as she becomes the queen of high school. This is why, in her first heaven, 'all the buildings looked like suburban […] high schools build in the 1960s' (2.1).

She is a natural with the camera and learns from photographing her mother, Abigail, that a photo can reveal a person's inner needs and desires. The photos of her mother that Susie leaves behind help her father, Jack, to understand Abigail. This understanding leads to a strengthening of their relationship. Susie carries this photographic eye with her into heaven, and she often tells her story pictorially, as stressed in one of the few titled chapters, 'Snapshots.'

Susie is obsessed with design and arrangement. She sees the elements of the world as bones, or pieces of structures in the process of being built. The photos she leaves behind, Len Fenerman's photos of the dead, and all the metaphorical photos she takes from heaven are potent, overlapping structures within the body of the novel. As she moves through time in the afterlife, her perceptions become keener. Thus offering us with the fascinating idea that our talents and interest

continue to grow after we die. If Susie was a nonfictional victim, we would never talk about her as a tragic hero with fatal flaws. But, since she's a character in a book, and she presents herself to us as just such a figure, we have no choice. So let's go through some of the key elements of a tragic hero and see how she fits the mould.

Susie would be described today as Too nice… It is argued that the hero in a tragedy should be an exceptional person, but with certain character qualities that lead him/her to make certain choices that result in his/her tragic end. In this case, Susie's so-called tragic flaws are trust, politeness, and curiosity.

Susie's curiosity about design, structure, and building makes her easy prey for Mr. Harvey. She says, 'I was no longer cold or weirded out by the look he had given me. It was like I was in science class: I was curious' (1.34). Curiosity alone couldn't get her into that hole. Innocence, trust, respect for authority, and politeness were also very involved. Susie was acting within the rules, normalities, and expectations of her culture.

Mr. Harvey is a neighbour, and her dad even called him 'a character' (1.41) to explain his eccentric behaviour. Susie and her parents have no idea that people like Harvey even exist, at least not in their very own neighbourhood. So, Susie has nothing but a slight intuition to warn her of Mr. Harvey. But her curiosity, innocence, and trust in adults in general override that intuition.

Antagonists

Mr. Harvey, is a sexual predator, a rapist, a serial killer who has very serious emotional problems. He's the 36-year-old neighbour who rapes and murders Susie, within minutes of her own home. He is a danger to any young girl or woman whom he seeks to 'free from her horrible life.' Although indispensable to the novel, his story is always secondary to the stories of Susie and her loved ones. After Mr. Harvey leaves Susie's suburban neighbourhood, she doesn't watch him as closely, unless he's thinking about Lindsey, or moving back toward her family. Susie is subtle but clear that he carries on his hideous acts after her death, but if she sees his brutalities, she doesn't do much reporting back on them. It's a much-noted fact that Harvey is revealed as Susie's killer from the first few pages. This is a very powerful use of dramatic irony. As the readers are Susie's confidants, they are acquainted with the secret she wishes wasn't to be so secret. We watch along with her in anticipation of Mr. Harvey's guilt to be proven. Susie's constant use of the title 'Mr.' to refer to her rapist is disconcerting, but it pushes home the point that she viewed him as an authority figure, someone to be trusted, and if not trusted, obeyed.

Mr. Harvey must have been living in the neighbourhood for a few years at least, and Susie seems to be his first human victim from the neighbourhood. According to Susie, Harvey's been putting off his urges by killing cats and dogs. In the novel, the phrase 'serial killer' isn't used, because, in the early '70s, it hadn't yet become a part of the known vocabulary. Today, he is called a serial killer because he fits the usual definition. As opposed to murderers and spree killers, serial killers are known for having 'cooling-off times' – time in between attacks. Attacks are risky, big events, not everyday happenings.

If the list of the dead we get in Chapter 14 is complete, Harvey kills a woman and a girl in 1960 (when Harvey would have been about 23), one girl in 1963, a teen girl in 1967, a teen in 1969, another teen girl in 1971, and then Susie in 1973. It is later revealed that 'The first girl he hurt was by accident' (21.100). Susie tells us that, 'He had regretted it, this quiet muffled rape of a childhood friend, but didn't see it as anything that would stay with either of them' (21.100).

The readers aren't given many details about Harvey's post-Susie victims. But when Harvey visits the shack in Connecticut in 1981, it appears that he had killed a 'young waitress […] several years before' (21.1). It is evident that there seems to be a pattern between the killings; there are years in between most killings, and other than 1960, no more than one killing per year. These gaps between killings are the main reason Harvey is able to avoid any detection.

However, there was also another antagonist that lies deeper: grief. When the family found out about Susie they have been struggling to find peace within themselves and finally realize that Susie is gone and live on with their lives. In fact, they are at war with themselves and each other as they try to come to terms with the tragedy that has cursed their family.