Analysis

Each individual in the world comes to a time in their life when they lose a loved one. Whether it's a grandmother, father, sister or friend, we each can relate to how the loss of a loved one can impact our lives. In the novel The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, the author provides many examples of how grief is depressing, but a necessary process in order to move on. Sebold uses the characters, Lindsey, Abigail, and Jack to demonstrate how they each go through the processes of grief to help them return to a healthy lifestyle again.

Susie's sister, Lindsey, carries all the responsibility of keeping her family together. She is the strongest one in the family yet, still suffers from burdens that have been cast upon her. When Susie passes away, Lindsey deals with the loss of her happiness and love. When the reader examines Lindsey, she seems alone and angry. When Lindsey’s teacher apologizes to her for her sister’s loss, Lindsey responds back with, “I wasn't aware I had lost anything.” This shows the reader Lindsey still isn't ready to face the acceptance of her sisters passing and still needs time to accept what has happened. As Lindsey goes on in the book, she starts to create self-vs.-self conflict. She wants to move on from Susie’s death, but cannot because she blames herself for her murder and starts to feel like it should’ve been her who died instead of Susie. As Lindsey goes on in the book, she also starts to grow into depression where every time she looks at herself, she only sees Susie. This forces her to have a more difficult of time moving on. Although she tries to live life by acting as if she has lost no one, Susie continues to remind her that she is dead every time Susie appears in the mirror, causing Lindsey to have no choice, but to face her sister’s death. Lindsey later learns to accept that her sister is gone and that she will have to grieve in order to heal. Once Lindsey grieves, she is able to forgive her herself and accept the loss of her sister.

            The author’s primary goal of Lindsey’s character is to establish the concept that if people continuously try to avoid their emotions instead of deal with them, they will eventually lash out as a result of stress and depression. The traumatic event of a loved one’s death usually results with built up emotions of sorrow and sadness. Her family is willing to go through the grieving process with Lindsey, but she refuses to show anyone any type of emotion. What Lindsey fails to realize is that grievance of a loved one is inevitable. Whether or not one tries to push it away, it will catch up to them. It is better to go through the process now rather than suffer for an even longer amount of time.

Susie's mother, Abigail, is very unhappy in the book. When Abigail finds out that her daughter has passed, she automatically turns to denial. Even when detective Len Fenermen leads her to the evidence that Susie has passed away. Abigail still has a hard time facing the fact she will never get to see her daughter again. Therefore, she starts to abandon herself from the family. Abigail leaves the family for eight years and has an affair with detective Len Fenermen to forget about everything at home. When a few years go by Abigail is asked to go to Susie’s memorial service, but she responds negatively by saying “We’ve had the memorial, that’s done for me.” Sooner than later, Abigail realizes she needs her family more than anything during her healing process. When she admits to Jack, “I never realized how much I needed you through this.. I think coming back home was for the best.” Abigail finally comes to the conclusion that in order for her to heal, she needs to reunite with her family again and together, they will accept Susie's death.

The author is able to show through Abigail that being told something one does not want to hear can be tough, but the only way to deal with the information is to make the effort to accept it. Families that encounter these types of tragedies have to be ready to face life and create a whole new life style to move on. This can only be done through the use of love, acceptance, and patience between one another.

When Susie passes away, unlike the rest of the characters, Jack, Susie’s father, actually grieves and takes her death the hardest. When evidence pointed that Susie salmon was dead jack was in denial. As pain started to proceed in jack he had to face the truth. Where he becomes obsessed with Susie's murder and tries every way possible to find her body and killer. Even when detective Len Fenermen gives up on the case, Jack still maintains hope. In every way possible Jack shows determination. Even when he knows deep down who killed his daughter he still find several way to contact the police to keep this case going. However, as time goes on Susie helps her father solve the case through the “in-between world,” and the love Jack has for Susie helps him process his grief and heals him again. Where Jack then realizes the love he has for his daughter is more important. Just by letting go does not mean that he will have to forget about her forever.

Therefore, the author wants the reader to learn the importance of Jack’s determination to find Susie’s killer. The love that Jack provides toward his daughter allows him to be more accepting and understanding than the other two characters. Jack was able to create a character that showed grief in the beginning but when his daughter was able to help him solve the case he grew to heal. Where this gives the reader to never give up in any circumstances or battle, the best thing to do is move on and be more accepting.

Sebold proves that each character has a different way of coping with Susie’s death. She shows the audience realistic events that take place in the real world. Even with the novel being a fantasy book, we can see that at some point in our lives we all have or will go through the same process Susie's family went through to understand gain acceptance of a loved one’s death. Given all the processes Sebold wants the reader to learn the most important one is grief. The only ways to grow is to heal and grieve to get person out of depression, anger, and denial to move on. Sebold shows the value of family can fall apart with a tragedy of a loved one, but the way to get things to fall back into place is through love and happiness to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Work Cited 

Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones. United States: Little, Brown & Company, 2002. Print.