The Lovely Bones

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English Summer Reading Essay The Lovely Bones- details & symbols Every novel or piece of work has symbols and details that are placed in the story for specific reasons. A symbol is something that represents something else, most of the time it is something abstract. The little details in a story can also be very significant in the story line. They might be the smallest of details but they can mean or represent something so big. In the book The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold there are details and symbols that will cause a reader to understand the story line much better and it will make it more creative throughout the components of the book. One of the main symbolic things in the book The Lovely Bones was the keystone state charm because it represented Susie herself. Like the keystone state charm, Susie is the keystone of the family and when she is murdered her family starts falling apart. Jack starts obsessing with finding out who killed Susie, Abigail eventually runs away from her family and Lindsey feels like she has been abandoned. The charm bracelet itself represents the charmed life that the Salmon family had led up until this point. They live in a suburb and in a time when murders and rapes never occurred. When Susie and the charm bracelet go missing they realize in a violent and sudden manner that this charmed life has come to an end. Faced with the tragic death of Susie the family starts to crumble into pieces. Some of the few small details that represent something are the old shoe from the Monopoly game. That was a piece of the game that was Susie’s favorite and it represented Susie to Buckley, it was also strange how that piece disappeared after her death too. The women on the widow’s walk of Susie’s house in Heaven were representing all the women that were victims of Harvey, just like Susie and they had all gone to heaven. The “bag o’magic” was
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