Setting
There are many important settings in "The Lovely Bones" that helped shape the story. The settings in the novel are important because they tell a story of Susie's murder and help solve the murder. One place is Susie’s heaven, or also known as “the inbetween”. That is where we first meet Susie in the beginning of the novel. It is important to the setting because that is where Susie learns about her murderer, Mr. Harvey. She learns about all of the girls Mr. Harvey has murdered, and how/where he murdered them. There Susie also watches her family learn and grow without her. Susie watches as her family members become more distant from each other because of her death. She also has a new perspective of Earth there. Susie said, "The odd thing about Earth was what we saw when we looked down. Besides the initial view that you might suspect, the old ants-from-skyscraper phenomenon, there were souls leaving bodies all over the world" (Sebold 36). Another important setting is the cornfield, where Susie got murdered in the night time. There, the police go looking for evidence to Susie’s murder.On December 6th, Susie was murdered. Ruth went to the store that night a year after her murder and said to Ray, "I thought we might go to the cornfield and light them. Say goodbye" (Sebold 202). Every year on December 6th, the neighbors and friends of Susie lite candles and send off lanterns in remembrance of her in the cornfield. There they often thought of how their lives were different without her there. In addition to that, Susie’s house is also an important setting in the story. That is where the relationships of the Salmon family changes. After Susie was murdered, the family was torn apart. Abigail Salmon, Susie’s mom, leaves the house to run away from her feelings, and the family is changed. Often her father, Jack Salmon, will think of her in his den where him and Susie used to build bottled ships. Susie also appears to her younger brother, Buckley, in his room.
Ryzhkov, Dmitry. "Cornfield." Photograph. 02 Feb. 2012. "Flickr." Flickr.com. Web. 04 March 2015.
Susie Salmon's Heaven. Photograph. n.d. "Outside Your Heaven." Outsideyourheaven.blogspot.com. Web. 04 March 2015.