Tuesday 2 September 2008

How would you describe the main characters from a mental standpoint in The Lovely Bones?

I think you
have to infer a lot of this from what the characters do and say in this novel. For example, with
Mr. Harvey, we know he is a serial killer, so his mental characteristics are typical of someone
who lures children to their death. Notice when he first runs into Susie before he kills her, how
he is very devious and sly - he tries to befriend her, even calls her by name (which she
realizes from heaven should have warned her, because he claimed not to know her name at the
beginning of their encounter). As the novel progresses, we see how devious he is in pretending
to be sorry about Susie's death, eluding the police, and even at the end, where he is stalking
another victim. Mostly, his mental characteristics are that he is a pervert.


Susie's mental characteristics evolve over the course of the novel. She is describing the story
in retrospect, and she grows mentally....

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