Lambro Golloshi
ENG 102 17
Prof. Tappin
4-23-2012
Lovely bones Critical Analysis Paper Losing a loved one can be such a difficult thing to accept. But what if you kept believing she was still there? Definitely not in body, but lingering in spirit. In The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, we dive into the mind of Susie Salmon; a 14 year old, dead girl. When Susie Salmon is murdered on her way home from school, she leaves behind a family and friends who care deeply for her. As each person deals with her death, most of them deal with a large amount of survivor’s guilt. The two characters that seem to have the hardest time accepting Susie’s death and their own survival are Lindsey Salmon and Ruth Connors. Lindsey deals not only with the …show more content…

Jack Salmon is Susie’s father. He feels enormous guilt for having failed to protect his little girl, but he also remains devoted to her memory and actively seeks her appearance in some manner in his life. He is a man who is faced with the departure of his wife who leaves the family to resolve her own grief. He then takes over as both father and mother to his two remaining children, bearing the burden of their pain as well as his own. Abigail Salmon is Susie’s mother. She grieves several things: the loss of her daughter, the collapse of her family, and the loss of the life she never had the opportunity to live. She is profoundly unhappy even before Susie’s death and so she has tremendous hurdles to overcome. She is selfish and unfeeling as well when she has an affair with the detective who is investigating Susie’s death and when she decides to leave her family for seven years to take care of herself. In the end, she recognizes her faults and her mistakes and moves to correct them for her family. She is able to let go of Susie and let go of the childish desires that caused her to walk away. Lindsey Salmon is Susie’s younger (and then older) sister. Lindsey is the one of the family who suffers in silence and wills herself to be strong for everyone else. Yet, her pain is deep and she bears many burdens. Because Susie looks like Lindsey, people see only a bloody body when they look at her. Her