"The Lovely Bones," by Alice Sebold, tells the story of a teenage girl named Susie Salmon who was raped and murdered by her neighbor. Susie watches from heaven as the Salmon's family mourn her death. The Salmon family has a difficult time coping with Susie's disappearance. However, throughout the story, Susie tries to help her family to move on, but unfortunately, things fall apart. Susie's family undergoes different stages of grief. By looking at three of the five stages of grief; anger, depression and finally acceptance, it becomes clear that grief plays an important role for the characters in the novel, in order for them to gain closure. .
One of the five stages of grief is anger. The author displays anger were Jack and Buckley plays the role of anger. Anger is an initial behavior of a person when he or she lost a loved one. Jack has difficulties overcoming the loss of his eldest child and his initial reaction is anger. To begin, Jack Salmon is one of the characters that Alice Sebold uses to reveals the one of the five stages of grief in her novel, The Lovely Bones, which is anger. For example, Susie is watching his father from the heaven shattering the ships and she says, "He smashed the one first I watched him as he smashed the rest." (Sebold 46) In this quote, Jack is shattering the ships in the bottles that Susie and himself build and complete. His anger is an expression of his love towards Susie and he is hoping to be .
able to see Susie's image in the glass. Jack conveys hope, love and loneliness towards her daughters death. .
Also, the author uses Jack to reveal his anger to Mr. Harvey, who is the murderer, even though he does not have a solid proof yet. For instance, as Susie narrates her story and she witnesses her father and Mr. Harvey's conversation when Jack says, "When he handed a stack to my father's fingers 'You know something,' my father said." (Sebold 57).