The Lovely Bones
In quite an outstanding use of folklore narrative and a religious motif, Alice Sebold in her novel ″The Lovely Bones″ presents the story of the young Susie Salmon who narrates her encounter from heaven. The story is based on the experiences that Susie had undergone in the hands of her neighbor at the age of fourteen. Susie had been raped and later murdered by the ruthless neighbor and was spending her life in heaven overseeing the lives of her relatives. Alice Sebold uses the various characters to pass the overall message that she intends to pass from the beginning to the end of her story. Sebold uses the first-person narrative to give a clearer picture of the Christian belief of life after death and the ability of the dead to create connections with the living.
Sebold begins the story with rhetoric questions that capture the emotional attention of the readers. The questions raise the readers’ thinking capacity by triggering thoughts that everyone would not want to have, but the reality in them gives them no option than to think about them. The imagery created by the questions is that of the dangers that might befall a child on a lonely day or night. The author questions the responses of the child’s relative towards news of a child’s murder or a missing child whose suspicion for murder is high. Also, the position of the police in handling such cases and the efficiency of the police in conducting an active investigation to bring the offenders into the trial is also questioned. The probability that the evidence that everyone in such a family would not be willing to find since it could be a confirmation of the child’s death is presented (Rietveld, 107). Alice Sebold uses the imagery to present the different interests portrayed by the different parties involved in solving the puzzle of a missing child. The police would be delighted in finding some body parts since they would have enough evidence to conclude that the child is dead. The family-members on the other side will be broken by finding such evidence since the hope of finding their child still alive die with the evidence that the child could be dead. In the case of Susie Salmon, the evidence provided by the body parts and blood in the corn-field kills the hope of her family of ever meeting her again. Despite the evidence, the offender is not arrested, and no one is held responsible for her murder. Sebold, however, does not leave the readers at the darkness concerning life after Susie’s death but uses Susie’s first-person narrative to give an image of heaven where souls go after death.
Alice Sebold utilizes a first-person narrative by letting Susie Salmon give her story from her death to the time she manages to go to heaven. Susie presents her vision of heaven as a vast place that has several mansions the same way that the Christian faith explains. However, the presentation of heaven by Salmon deviates a bit from Christianity by including ideas borrowed from secular beliefs and folklore designs. Christianity does not present the ability of departed souls to visit the living, but most secular cultures leave such possibility. Salmon can oversee the lives of her former relatives and the transformations that they undergo after her death. After some time, Salmon is granted her wish of visiting some of her relatives. For example, Salmon visits her brother through his garden, a visit that was evidenced by the blossoming of the garden. The ability of the departed souls to come back to earth and speak with the living presents the folklore part of the novel. The presentation of heaven as a place where spirits have the right to make desires that are granted conditionally makes the novel a ghost story that has a complex combination of religion, secular beliefs, and folklore narrative. Generally, the use of imagery by Sebold is crucial in the presentation of ideas to an audience whose attention has been entirely drawn by the narration done by the young girl from heaven. The use of the first-person narrative is strategic in presenting the idea that death does not kill the desire to acquire knowledge.
Susie presents an answer to the question of whether death brings to an end, the desire to acquire knowledge. The narrative by Susie makes a clear admission that Susie is desperate to learn what she had not been able to learn for the few years she had spent on earth. Susie had not yet acquired enough knowledge on the human interest in love, sex, and even work. In heaven, Susie meets Franny who had died in the hands of an abusive man and had taken Susie as her counselor in heaven. However, Franny gives Susie information sparingly: “When the dead are done with the living…the living can go on to other things…,” Sebold (145). Franny assures Susie that the desire to get knowledge on the pleasures of the world could not be granted and its pursuit would only land her into consequences. Susie initially perceives heaven as the destination for all the female victims of abuse and murder. Later, Susie meets her friend Holly, and they decide to walk through the journey of heaven together making discoveries together. Susie and Holly discover that their desires were given sufficient attention and that the rate at which wishes were granted depended on the sense in which they made. For example, the desire by Susie to be allowed to meet with her relatives is given although she cannot have her first physical body. Susie is granted the wish to observe the lives of the relatives she had left behind and the progress they were making towards healing from her death. Also, the author has tried to show the divine nature of love using Susie.
Love is sacred, and death does not end the desire to love or to be loved. One of the wishes that Susie wanted to be granted was the wish to be allowed to possess a physical. Before her death, Susie had a boyfriend who they had not even kissed since they were still young. However, Susie appears to regret why she had not made love to her boyfriend, Ray before she died. The wish to possess a physical body is granted to Susie, and she possesses the body of her former classmate, Ruth. However, Ruth is possessed by her talent, and she decides to write poems for all the female victims who had been murdered in the recent past. Ruth would make a decision that no other person would dare think of by visiting all the spots where the murder had taken place and writing poems about all the dead females: “… horror on earth is real and it is every day… like the flower or like the sun…cannot be contained…,” Sebold (186). The image created by Sebold by using the different characters is aimed at showing heaven as a place where souls go to have fun instead of the spiritual reality that many people try to imagine. Eventually, the author successfully uses the correct tone to avoid the impacts of being sentimental.
The tone used in the novel effectively passes the author’s message without appearing sentimental. The narrative of Susie takes a twist from heaven to the earth when she is allowed to use Ruth’s body for a while. The author uses the possession of Susie to Ruth’s body to identify the murderers who had not been mentioned earlier in the story. Through compelling, Ruth can locate all the areas where a murder had occurred and written a poem about the same area. The compelling makes Ruth the names of all the killers in her journal although the information is not considered reliable by the police. The work of Ruth fascinates everybody, and even Susie is sure that she was compelling Ruth into doing strange things: “work that most people on Earth were too frightened even to contemplate” but which her “fans in heaven” cheer on.” The police only belief that evidence should be solid and that final proof should be given as to why the evidence should be used to make legal decisions. The possession of a physical body gives Susie the ability to get some memories back, and she can remember some of the moments she spent with Ray before her death (Jane, 324). The tone used reveals Susie’s lack of enough power to make decisions such as deciding to come back and thus her freedom only lies on the granting of the desires of her heart. Similarly, Sebold uses the first-person narrative to prove to the readers that the souls of the dead do not have the physical ability to intervene in the events of the physical world.
The souls of the dead can only observe the unfolding of the events in the physical world without any ability to intervene. Susie wishes to be given the ability to reunite with her family and heal their suffering. However, the much that Susie can do is to possess the body of Ruth to help in gathering the evidence about the female murder victims. The ability of Susie is only limited to making the world aware of the offenders but cannot help physically to arrest the offenders: “I could see that…but there was [nothing] I could do to help [Lindsey]…,” Sebold (321). The dreams that Susie gives her relatives concerning the suspect do not help since the police are only interested in tangible evidence and terms any other type of evidence as superstition. Susie is also granted a limited opportunity of meeting with her relatives through signs, but no physical interaction is allowed.
In sum, Alice Sebold has effectively used the first-person narrative to build the theme of folklore and the motif of religion. The novel has been developed by a combination of religious, secular, and folklore features to achieve its primary goal of sensitizing the community on the mistreatments that the female gender is going through.
Works Cited
Dini, Emy Predina. “BOOK REVIEW OF ALICE SEVOLD’S “THE LOVELY BONES”.” LANTERN (Journal on English Language, Culture and Literature) 4.2 (2015).
Kilby, Jane. “Saving the girl: A creative reading of Alice Sebold’s Lucky and The Lovely .” Feminist Theory 19.3 (2018): 323-343.
Rietveld, H. C. “Lovely Bones: Ambient Music and the Uncanny in Leitmotiv and Underscore.” (2016): 105-117.
Sebold, Alice. The lovely bones: a novel. Vol. 13. Pan Macmillan, 2015.