The Lovely Bones Lecture

As I understand, you have all read ‘The Lovely Bones’ by Alice Sebold. Today we are going to examine her novel with particular emphasis on her purpose in writing a novel such as this and we will also look at how she conveyed her intentions. This is an interesting undertaking when you consider the way she delivers the story. There is plenty of material to get through so if you will all ensure that your mobile phones are turned off, I will begin. The Lovely Bones originates from a personal experience. This novel is based on a young girl who is brutally raped and murdered, leaving her family and friends to grieve over their terrible loss. Sebold explores the enormity of loss, grief and the afterlife. These themes are delivered through a unique structure, point of view and the use of symbolism. The structure that Sebold uses is very effective and different. Sebold begins the novel with an epigraph, which shows the relationship between Susie and her father, Jack. In the epigraph, Susie describes a snow globe hat sat on her father’s desk when she was a child. A penguin was in the snow globe, and as a child, Susie was concerned that the penguin was lonely but Jack told her not to worry and reassured her that the penguin has a nice life because he is trapped in a perfect world. The emphasis is on ‘don’t worry’ and ‘trapped’, ‘don’t worry’ is intended to mean that after a terrible event, there will be recovery; ‘trapped’ suggests that life may not exactly return to normal. Sebold has provided a metaphorical example of what her novel is yet to become and also showed us the strong bond between Susie and Jack. Sebold calls the final chapter Bones, during this chapter she focuses on the healing process of the family. Susie has finally entered heaven and everyone has accepted Susie’s death, including Susie herself. During this chapter, Sebold highlights how much everyone in the family has grown. The view of which the story is told is also very unique as the victim, Susie