Monday, January 5, 2015

What stage of grief was Susie in during chapter 9 of The Lovely Bones?

While Susie does goes through the stages of grief in this novel, I am not sure she actually exhibits one specific stage of grief in chapter 9. This chapter takes place the night before her memorial service and ends the day of her memorial service.
Since Susie is the narrator, we usually are able to glimpse some of her feelings and therefore determine which stage of grief she is in. In this chapter, however, we do not glimpse much of Susie's feelings.
The chapter takes us through the arrival of Grandma and how she was "...dragging the light back in" (100). Susie sees Lindsey change positively while Grandma Lynn is there, sees how her father aches for her mother when she's sleeping but not while she's awake, etc. Susie sees it but doesn't comment in anger, denial, depression, or bargaining. Because of this, I would argue that in this chapter specifically, Susie could be in the final stage of grief: acceptance. She accepts her sister rummaging through her closet, accepts her father yearning for her mother only at night, and, perhaps most importantly, accepts her funeral taking place—perhaps something that symbolizes the dead moving on.
There is no evidence that she is in any of the other stages of grief in this chapter.

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