Theme Analysis The Lovely Bones has a wide variety of theme involved throughout the fantastic read. The novel includes themes such as grief, family, love, time, and desire.
Chapters 1-4 In the first section of the book the theme of desire is frequently demonstrate through dialogue and Susie's thoughts or stream of consciousness. Susie like most fourteen year girls wants to be considered an adults and go through the life experiences and stages of growing up, but now that Susie is unable to acheive these things she begins to desperately want to be alive again and live her ordinary life. For example in the the novel the quote "Eventually I began to desire more. What I had found strange was how much I desired to know what I had not known on Earth. I wanted to be able to grow up" (Sebold 19).
Also the theme of love is briefly shown, the quote "Yes, he had written Susie Salmon a love note. Yes, he had put it in her notebook ..." (Sebold 26). goes along with young love and the lines of growing.
Chapters 5-9 The second section of the story was focused on love, grief, and family. These chapters where focused on the few days after Susie was murdered and on her family's responses, emotions, and actions. Her father facing the most emotions of grief and guilt. For instance in the quote "The guilt on him, the hand of God pressing down on him, saying, You were not there when your daughter needed you." (Sebold 58). showing the grief of Susie's death on Jack Salmon was so unbearable it led him to believe that it was his fault for being unable to find her the night she went missing.
Another quote located in this section that shows the coping of family after a tragedy was "Susie is dead," he said now, unable to make it fit in the rules of any game" ( Sebold 69). when Jack does the insufferable task of telling Susie's little brother that he will never see her again.
Chapters 10-14 In the third section of the book Susie's explains her heaven in more detail and continues to talk about her family on Earth, a textual piece from chapter fourteen is "It was on that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or the sun; it cannot be contained." (Sebold 186). This specific quote shows the elements of grief, the fact that Susie would tell others in heaven and people like you and me that horror is real, and that greif comes behind it. It is possible that Susie tells her storie to remember that her family loves her and sheds greif to morn their loss.
The quote "Stop wondering what every one left on Earth is feeling.... you can be free. Simply put, you have to give up on Earth " (Sebold 120). was also found in this section. Questions you may be having are how could Susie give up on earth, on watching her family bond and grow?, but if you continue reading you see that in Susie's stream of consciousness it states the words "This seemed impossible to me." (Sebold 120) which brings the point of love and family Susie is incapable to let go of her family that she loves and hold dear to her heart.
Chapters 15 -19 including Snapshot The development of the quote "He nodded and kissed my father's cheek. Something so divine that no one up in heaven could have made it up; the care a child took with an adult." (Sebold 47). which shows a father and son relationship, is found in the fourth section of the the novel. In this section Buckley Susie's brother and her father become very close unlike ever before. This particular quote shows the element of time, by showing the love they share for each other in the beginning of the book and the advances of there relationship in the forth section of the novel.
Chapter 20-23 including Bones As the novel is coming to a closing in the fifth section Susie's stream of consciousness shows what is possibly the most powerful quote with in the novel. The quote "These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections — sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent — that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events my death brought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous lifeless body had been my life." (Sebold 320). you will find the themes of love, family, desire, time, and grief.
In the very last chapter of the novel the quote "Now I am in the place I call this wide wide Heaven because it includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble and grand." (Sebold 325). can be found. Susie has finally let go of earth, the quote shows the theme of time, that after more than 8 years she is finally set free.
Diction and Tone Through out the novel Alice Sebold uses many diction words along the lines of a mournful, sad, and somber tone. Chapters 1-4 Diction word such as "contempt" (Sebold 5), "murderer" (Sebold 6), "frozen" (Sebold 9), and "dark" (sebold 9) were all words with strong diction found in this first section to gave a tone to the novel. In this first section these word are describing the horrible tagedy Susie Salmon went through. The words not only give a better undrestanding of what Susie is going through but, make a reader feel as if you were Susie or feel a certain hurt in hour heart.
Other diction word with a completely different tone arwe also found, possibly the feeling of hope. The words "love" (Sebold 9) and "beautiful" (Sebold 6) are leaned towards the hope of Susie's loved ones. These words show the love of A beautiful family still in hope of their oldest daughters reappearance.
Chapter 5-9 Numerous amounts of diction words used to describe they way a murder such as George Harvey feels after the murdering of Susie Salmon and the way Susie feels about Mr. Harvey are found, these words include "vengeance' (Sebold 58), "guilt" (Sebold 58), "poison" (Sebold 58), "dead" (Sebold 59) and "dark" (Sebold 63).
Also word like "lovely" (Sebold 60), "remarkable" (Sebold 63), "heaven" (Sebold 66), as well as, "love" (Sebold 70) and "beautiful" (Sebold 73) were found in this second section of the novel The Lovely Bones. These words gave a more happy tone, representing Susie's family although they were losing hope and afraid that they may never se there loved one again.
Chapters 10-14 In this section there was an overall sad tone, word like "murder" (Sebold 121), and "dead" (Sebold 124) were use to give this section its tone. More word include, "death" (Sebold 114), "alone" (Sebold 117), "lonely" (Sebold 123), and "killed" (Sebold 125)
Although the overall tone sad there were some words of diction that brightened the section up such as "perfect" (Sebold 122), and "heavens" (Sebold 119).
Chapters 15-19 including Snapshot Diction words such as "love" (Sebold 188), "blood" (Sebold 193), "murder" (Sebold 195), "greif" (Sebold 195), and "death" (Sebold 200) are located in this section and give mournful tone. When you are in greif usually you are mourning over a death of a family member or the loss of someone close. So just imagine death of your sibiling or daughter by a bloody murder which just makes daeth so much more unbearable. Authors use certian types of words to get a reader to feel a certain way, the words above are used to make you feel sad or mourn for the loss of Susie's family.
Chapters 20-23 including Bones As the novel is coming to a resolution the author Alice Sebold uses word such as "heaven" (Sebold 276), "beautiful" (Sebold 273), and "love" (Sebold 277) to give a happy ending to a tragic story. The happy ending of The Lovely Bones includes a family that is closer to one another than ever before, but lets not forget the happy ending that Susie receives. George Harvey dies, Susie gets one more chance to say goodbye to Ray Singh before shes gone forever, and Susie lives in gaceful and amazing heaven.