The Lovely Bones Foreshadowing Essay

Today, true crime is one of the fastest growing genres of media, and heartrending crime is not uncommon. However, in the twentieth century, serial killings and abductions were at an all time high, yet people refused to talk about it. The Lovely Bones is a novel about a 14 year old girl named Susie Salmon who is abducted and murdered on December 6th,1973. The novel The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold uses foreshadowing, irony and symbolism within the novel to express the theme of the book, which is the battle between injustice and grief. Alice Sebold uses foreshadowing to convey the deeper meaning of the novel by creating suspense and building dramatic tension. Susie states earlier in the novel that her chosen weapon for murder would be the icicle, because it melts away and leaves no trace. In the last chapter of the book, an icicle knocks Mr. Harvey down and kills him. The author writes, “‘How to Commit the Perfect Murder’ was an old game..I always chose the icicle: the weapon melts away” (Sebold 125) Then, Mr. Harvey meets his demise: “A moment later, the icicle fell…It would be weeks before the snow melted enough to uncover him”(Sebold 327). Susie choosing the icicle as her weapon of choice foreshadows Mr.

Susie’s mother knits her a hat that represents the love for her daughter. When Susie is abducted, Mr. Harvey perverts the meaning of the hat and uses it to gag her during the attack. The novel states, “He reached into the pocket of my parka and balled up the hat my mother had made me, smashing it into my mouth”(Sebold 13). The hat being used to silence Susie showcases the theme of injustice by making the reader feel the pain of Susie’s mother through her death. Though one can argue that symbolism is more important than the others, all three literary elements successfully work together to portray the theme of injustice and