In Chapter
21, Ruth and Ray visit the sinkhole the day before the Flanagan family has arranged for it to be
filled with concrete. In a chilling and meaningful moment, Ruth wonders out loud to Ray whether
Susie's body was dumped there. Susie cheers in heaven at Ruth's correct guess, yet in the end,
her body is never discovered. Even if the sinkhole was not planning to be filled, objects
discarded in the landfill are considered irretrievable.
This incidence is not
the only case in which the sinkhole contains significant meaning. It is linked to Susie even
before she is murdered. Susie's father took her to the landfill to dispose of things in the
years leading up to her death. In Chapter 4, the scene in which Mr. Harvey takes the safe
containing Susie's body to the landfill features tragic . Mrs. Flanagan asks him: What do you
have in here? A dead body? Mrs. Flanagan does not realize how macabre her joke is, as she does
not have the same insight that the reader does.
When the author establishes
that Susie's body will never be found, the story highlights the injustice of unsolved homicide.
It becomes clear that is not about seeking closure and justice, but the
Salmon family coming to terms with the loss of Susie. The sinkhole thus represents the grief,
despair, and horror Susie and her family must pull themselves out of, through emotional struggle
and familial love.
Personally, the ending of The Lovely
Bones was a somber reminder of how many murders in this world go unsolved and the
ability for killers to escape persecution. It made me wonder how many unsolved murders have come
close to being solved, like Susie's.
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