Grief In The Lovely Bones By Alice Sebold

In her story, The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold illustrates the idea of dealing with grief by forcing the reader to suffer with Susie and her broken family. The death of a loved one can sometimes cause a person to experience the five stages of grief, and as a result, the person accepts loss and moves on. As Susie remains in the “in-between”, the five stages of grief are shown through each member of Susie’s family throughout the story as they try to cope with the tragedy of her death. Jack Salmon, Susie’s father is a major character who suffers a lot of pain after the disappearance of Susie. When Susie goes missing Jack has hope, he thinks she is still alive. When Detective Len and Susie’s parents are talking about Susie, Jack says : “Nothing is …show more content…
He goes over to everyone and lists the people who seem a tad bit suspicious. Detective Len is trying his best to accommodate the Salmon family but at this point, the people and even the police start getting annoyed and tired because a few months have passed since the disappearance of Susie. Jack Salmon has been given several warnings from Len but he does not listen so Len gives up. After the bargaining, Jack gets suspicious of Mr.Harvey being the killer. He leaves everyone else as a suspect and holds on to Mr. Harvey because his instincts tell him that the killer is Mr. Harvey. However, the bargaining escalates into depression pretty quick. Jack is recklessly trying to connect Mr. Harvey with the murder but he cannot put the pieces together, so he feels like he has failed. He loses all ambition and shuts himself down. Grandma Lynn notices the condition of Jack because Abigail is too blind to see anything since she is busy in her own grieving process. Grandma Lynn says,“There’s a tomb in the middle of your living room!” (167).This quotation clarifies the mental and physical state of Jack Salmon. Jack is as