Symbols In The Lovely Bones

Photographs Symbolism

Amiaya Glover

English II Honors

Ms.Kyzer

December 7, 2015

Photographs Symbolism

When a loved one passes away they leave an impact on every person involved in their life. To overcome grief. A simple man made a device that can be used everyday, the device makes pictures which can used as a healing method or a symbol . In the novel The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold,Susie Salmon a 14-year old girl is murder on her way home from school, she leaves behind a family and friends who each deals with her death differently, most of them deal or find comfort through photographs by Susie Salmon. This paper will explore a object with the power to preserve a moment and that is photographs. The importance of photographs

In the book photographs at first glance does not seem that important other than Susie Salmon wanting to become a wildlife photographer when she grows up, but as the book progresses the meaning behind the camera the photos grows deeper. “When the roll came back from the Kodak plant in a special heavy envelope, I could see the difference immediately. There was only one picture in which my mother was Abigail” (Sebold,2002, p.29). In chapter three, Susie on her eleventh birthday takes her first picture with the new camera which is of her unaware mother sitting outside on the lawn lost in thought. Susie snaps a photo after staring a few moments into her mother bottomless eyes that were filled with a lot of lost. By taking that photograph she sees her mother in a way she has never seen before. “one captured before the click startled her into the mother of the birthday girl, owner of the happy dog, wife to the loving man, and mother again to another girl and a cherished boy. Homemaker. Gardener. Sunny neighbor”(Sebold,2002, p.29). That moment brings about a realization that

The photographs offered a clear view of emotion on looking through their eyes to the photos. Detective Len Fenerman having her photo and along with other victims in his wallet represents his failure find the murders, along with feeling he failed in finding the murders and trying to love Abigail, bring him in the end to write “Gone, he wrote on each one of them. He would no longer wait for a date to mark an understanding of who or why or how. He would never understand all the reasons why his wife had killed herself. He would never understand how so many children went missing”(Sebold,2002, p. 60). His acceptance that the dead are no longer with them. For Abigail, Susie is her first daughter and the one who originally made her a mother; the picture makes her feel as though she was punished for not wanting Susie. In the end Abigail leaves the portrait at the airport, symbolizing her transition out of the trauma of Susie’s death. Ray only to discover it again when he goes to college. For Ray, Susie’s picture is an image of the girl that he first loved, and the first lips that he kissed. As the novel goes on, the characters that possess the portrait change their reading of it, symbolizing their ability to move on from the trauma of Susie’s