Lovely Bones Essay

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Karly Manchin Professor Myers FYS-150 September 13, 2012 The death of a young person is always a tragedy. But is this death more difficult for the survivors to accept, because it involves murder and rape? Explain your answer. Does the fact that Susie’s body is not recovered in its entirety complicate the grieving process for the persons in the story? Discuss by describing the ways that some of the surviving characters in the story react to Susie’s death. Do you think their reactions would have been different if Susie died a different type of death? Murder: a six-letter word that no human being ever wants to hear. A word that means something so atrocious people will turn ill after hearing the two syllables bounce off their eardrums. The death of anyone let alone a young person is always a tragedy. A person who is able to take the life of another human being without any consent or remorse is a coldblooded murderer. Another word humans cringe at when it is spoken about. In the novel The Lovely Bones, written by Alice Sebold, young Susie Salmon was murdered and raped on December 6th 1973 by neighbor George Harvey. The slaying of Susie devastated her whole town and brought them closer together. Losing such a young and bright student such as Susie in a horrible way such as murder and rape, the town would react in the same manner because murder never took place in their small Pennsylvania town. Death is portrayed as a sad and depressing entity. Although everyone will experience some sort of death in their lifetime, many do not know how to handle a sudden and brutal one. For the Salmon family, the death of their daughter Susie is a tremendous task to try and cope with because of how she died. First by being trapped in an underground room, than raped against her will, and finally having her body cut up into sections of limbs and blocks of un-living
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