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The Lovely Bones Analysis

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Have you ever imagined being slaughtered and having to watch from Heaven as your family tries to solve your murder case? That’s exactly what Susie Salmon, the main character from The Lovely Bones does. Susie is killed by her neighbor, Mr. Harvey, and she watches as he slips past the detectives with lies. The Lovely Bones is written by Alice Sebold, while the movie rendition is directed by Peter Jackson. Both the author and the director use techniques to bring the storyline to life and make it more entertaining for the audience. Sebold applies indirect characterization, imagery, and foreshadowing in the book to make the readers feel and ponder, and Jackson depicts that by using camera movements and angles, the manipulation of sound, and editing. Sebold uses indirect characterization, and to portray this, Jackson uses camera movements and angles. Indirect characterization allows the readers to think about the characters in the story and how the dialogue or narrations written relate to them. For instance, “Mr. Salmon was crazy with grief… persistent phone calls, his obsession with his neighbor” (141), is a brief quotation from the book. From this passage, readers are able to form their own opinions about Mr. Salmon and his personality. It also makes it so that Sebold doesn’t have to write out every single detail about Mr. Salmon and how he feels, leaving the readers to assume. Different filming techniques, such as the movements and angles used by Jackson, illustrate indirect

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