illustration of Susie in the clouds with her charm bracelet above her head

The Lovely Bones

by Alice Sebold

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The Lovely Bones Questions and Answers

The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones book and movie share the same basic plot but differ in execution and detail. The book delves deeply into characters' inner thoughts and the grieving process, while the movie focuses...

3 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is a fictional story, though influenced by real-life events. Sebold's own traumatic experience of being raped in college informs the novel's themes, particularly the...

6 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, Susie's body is hidden in a sinkhole. After being murdered by Mr. Harvey, her body is dismembered and placed in a safe, which is then disposed of in the sinkhole. This location...

4 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

In the movie The Lovely Bones, Ray's poem to Susie reads: "If I had but an hour of love, If that be all that's given me. An hour of love; upon this earth, I would give my love to thee." The poem was...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, along with the fourteen-year-old narrator, Suzie Salmon, Mr. Harvey kills several other girls and women between the ages of six and forty-nine. His victims include Jackie Meyer...

3 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

Susie's Heaven in The Lovely Bones is a personalized world that reflects her desires and comforts. It is a serene place where she can watch over her family and friends on Earth, and it evolves to...

2 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold uses metaphors to convey deeper meanings. Susie compares her kiss with Ray to "a beautiful gasoline rainbow," illustrating the unexpected beauty of the moment....

3 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

Susie's dad can't discover her murderer because he lacks proof. Despite knowing George Harvey is the killer through intuition and subtle clues, he cannot provide concrete evidence. Susie's presence...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

The setting of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones is crucial to its narrative, taking place in the early 1970s in a semi-rural area near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This setting highlights the...

6 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

Mr. Harvey is never caught by the police in The Lovely Bones. Although suspected and questioned, there is insufficient evidence to connect him to Susie Salmon’s murder. He eventually flees town....

2 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, Abigail cheats on her husband with Len in Chapter Twelve. This affair is driven by her need to move on from her daughter's death and the emotional distance growing between her...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

The keystone state charm and the charm bracelet in The Lovely Bones symbolize Susie's integral role in her family and the love between her and her mother. The keystone charm, bearing Susie's...

2 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold employs key literary elements and techniques such as the use of a first-person narrative from the perspective of a deceased protagonist, a non-linear timeline, and...

5 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

In "The Lovely Bones," Mr. Harvey uses a knife to cut up Susie's body after murdering her. He dismembers her in an attempt to hide the evidence of his crime. This act, coupled with the rape and...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, major conflicts include Susie's murder and her family's subsequent grief. The resolution involves Susie's acceptance of her death and the family's eventual healing. George...

2 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

The glass bottles with ships inside symbolize the fragility of Susie's family and the shattering impact of her murder. Created by Susie and her father, these objects remind Jack of Susie's death and...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Susie mentions an icicle as the perfect murder weapon in chapter 10 during a game she and other spirits play in heaven. The game is inspired by a competition at a Gifted Symposium attended by Ruth,...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Mr. Harvey collects "souvenirs" or "trophies" from his victims, which he stores in a hole drilled into his house's foundation, referred to as his "trophy bag." Additionally, he disposes of some items...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

George Harvey is never definitively proven to be Susie's killer in The Lovely Bones, and he is never caught or punished for the crime. At the end of the novel, he dies by accident when an icicle hits...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

The novel is best suited for early high school students, typically 9th grade and above, due to its mature themes and explicit language. The graphic nature of certain scenes, such as the protagonist's...

3 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

Mr. Harvey's death occurs on page 327 in the final chapter, "Bones," of The Lovely Bones. He dies when an icicle falls, causing him to lose balance and stumble into a ravine. This method of death is...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Ruth becomes Susie’s main connection to Earth because she happens to be standing in the path that Susie takes on her journey to her heaven. Susie touches Ruth intentionally, but it is pure...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, the killer, Mr. Harvey, drives an early 1970s white Jeep Wagoneer. The exact year is not specified, but it is inferred to be from the early 1970s, as the story is set in 1973....

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, George Harvey is an unassuming, tall man with small round glasses who doesn't leave much of an impression on others, making people generally unsuspicious of him. He appears as a...

2 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

The aspect of the novel that I connect with most is the pain, angst, and frustration of Susie.

3 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

Abigail moves to California because she seeks an escape from her grief over her daughter's death and her husband's inability to move on. Initially, she tries to find solace through an affair but...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Abigail leaves her family for seven years, starting in 1975, due to profound unhappiness, grief, and guilt over Susie's death. She seeks to find herself and escape her intense emotions by relocating...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

The statement from page 186 of The Lovely Bones is a simile. A simile explicitly compares two things using the words "like" or "as." In the provided text, the phrase "It is like a flower or like the...

2 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

Her grandmother’s visit is both disruptive and restorative for Lindsey. Prior to her coming, Lindsey had struggled with her own grief as she moved out of the denial stage. She had also done her...

2 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

The author creates suspense in The Lovely Bones by revealing Susie's murder at the start, shifting the suspense to whether her family will uncover the truth about her killer, Mr. Harvey. The tension...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Internal and external conflicts in "The Lovely Bones" are exemplified through Abigail Salmon. Internally, Abigail struggles with dissatisfaction from unfulfilled dreams of teaching, feeling trapped...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Harvey in "The Lovely Bones" gives different names for his wife to craft sympathetic stories that disguise his odd behavior and deflect suspicion. He uses details from his most recent victim to...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Mr. Harvey dies at the end when an icicle falls on him, causing him to stumble into an icy ravine, where his body is concealed by snow. This death is symbolic, serving as natural justice for his...

3 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

In my opinion, one of the first indications that the family is using isolation to cope manifests itself in their isolation from Susie's room: My mother had not touched it. My bed was still unmade...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, Abigail's character is portrayed through both direct and indirect characterization. Indirectly, her withdrawal from family is shown through her disdain for the word "Momma,"...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

In "The Lovely Bones," sensory experiences are vividly depicted, particularly in a haunting scene. Sight is captured through images like a "finger painting" and "dark earth" with "worms." Sound is...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Franny is a minor character in Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, serving as a guide and counselor in Susie's personal heaven. A former therapist, Franny helps Susie understand the workings of the...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, the antagonist is George Harvey, who murders Susie Salmon, the protagonist. Susie watches from heaven as her family and friends deal with her death and seek justice. Key scenes...

3 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

In The Lovely Bones, Susie is not entirely undressed when Mr. Harvey kills her. Although he instructs her to undress and rips her pants, it is unclear if her underwear is removed. The book does not...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Susie Salmon, the protagonist in The Lovely Bones, is a non-conformist and literary-minded, as shown by her choice of a Spanish poet's quote in her yearbook. Despite being deceased, she is portrayed...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Mr. Harvey is a deeply evil character, a child-murderer and pedophile with a traumatic past that does not excuse his crimes. After Susie's murder, he continues to kill, showing a compulsive urge to...

2 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

The story is narrated from the point of view of Susie, who is watching over her family after being murdered. She explains how she can see what they do and think, but can't tell them she's there with...

2 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

George Harvey in The Lovely Bones is a 36-year-old serial killer and rapist, whose motivations are complex and rooted in his troubled past. Raised by a mother who encouraged petty crimes and a father...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Susie's brother in Alice Sebold's novel is named Buckley Salmon. He is the youngest child in the family, struggling with his sister's death. As the story unfolds, Buckley faces additional challenges...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Lindsey Salmon takes two items from her sister Susie's room: a photograph of their mother and a "Hippy-Dippy Says Love" button. The photograph captures their mother, Abigail, in an...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

The main point of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones revolves around the power of love in guiding the grieving and healing process. The novel explores how Susie Salmon's family copes with her death and...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Lindsey Salmon in The Lovely Bones is portrayed as a resilient and independent character who is deeply affected by her sister Susie's death but refuses to let it define her life. Unlike other family...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

The setting and time period of "The Lovely Bones" effectively enhance its themes, making it unnecessary to change them. The story's relevance in an era where young girls face dangers from predators...

1 educator answer

The Lovely Bones

Susie, by exploring her past life and death through the eyes of the people she has left behind, comes to terms with her passing. Each member of her family, who are at different stages of grief when...

2 educator answers

The Lovely Bones

The setting of The Lovely Bones in 1970s suburban Pennsylvania contrasts with the 21st century through its limited communication and trust in community safety. Susie's disappearance highlights the...

1 educator answer