Mr Harvey - Lovely Bones

Analyze how the writer uses a character for a symbolic purpose in an extended written text you have studied.

Most of the character’s in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, are strongly characterized and bring qualities that we, as readers, can relate to and understand, helping us to empathize with the family and Susie. There is one character however, that of George Harvey, Susie’s rapist and muderer, who is purposefully characterized in a way that most members of society could not begin to understand. Cruel, calculating, cold and cunning, Mr Harvey is the very symbol of evil in The Lovely Bones and helps to show the audience how real and present evil is. This itself, is a confronting and distressing thought, that there is people in society such as him, that may be hidden right next door. But Sebold, a past rape victim herself, uses Mr Harvey as a symbol of evil in this way to create awareness in her readers.

Even though Mr Harvey’s actions put him worlds away from most of us in terms of being a relatable character, we do get snapshots of his childhood and background throughout the novel. Through these snapshots of his childhood we learn how Mr Harvey was influenced by his mother, who also got a thrill out of doing something considered wrong in society, shoplifting. “At first no one stopped them, and it was something his mother enjoyed so much.” Shoplifting is clearly wrong, and the impression that you get is that at times his mother would engage in this with a young George Harvey just for the thrill of it, and as an afternoon activity to get away from her husband. She uses the illegal act as a form of escapism, and this could be a catalyst for the motivation behind Mr Harvey’s murders. The young George Harvey had learnt from his mother from an early age that it is ok to not act inside the laws of society, and seeing as she was his mother, he never questioned this. “And she began handing his the stolen items to hide on his body, and he did it because she wanted