Love And Redemption

Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones,published in 2002,won accolades such as the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction and the Bram Stoker Award.The novel tells the story of the heroine Susie who enters heaven after being brutally murdered by her neighbor Harvey,and watches the people who are still living in heaven in a series of stories over a period of ten years.The Salmon family,who lost Susie,has a great crisis,and in this decade Dad has been immersed in grief and has been looking for the murderer;The mother has been immersed in the pain of losing her daughter and finally ran away from home.The younger sister and younger brother were also noticed and ignored because of Susie.Although the novel describes the disintegration of Susie’s family after she was killed,the novel mainly describes the preciousness of family affection.Susie silently watched the world from heaven,and the family and friends who were still on earth were in pain,and they did not forget Susie,but always kept Susie in their hearts and silently missed her.In recent years,more and more scholars have studied the novel,but most of the research has focused on trauma and the symbolism in the novel.From the perspective of literary ethical criticism proposed by Professor Nie Zhenzhao,this thesis attempts to explore how the main characters in the novel make ethical selections in the ethical predicament and finally awaken after falling into the ethical predicament.This thesis is divided into five chapters,the first chapter introduces the author Alice Sebold and The Lovely Bones,and explains the current situation of research at home and abroad;The second chapter is the theoretical foundation,starting from the definition,development and content of literary ethical criticism,and studies the ethical ideas contained in literary ethical criticism.Chapter three begins with ethical predicament and analyzes the ethical predicament that Susie and her family faced after her death.Susie’s death brings indelible pain and torment to the family,and Susie’s father,Jack,is committed to finding the murderer of his daughter,and gradually becomes crazy.Susie’s mother is caught in an ethical dilemma after Susie’s death.To live for herself or for her family,Abigail was in trouble.Susie’s murder and rape by the killer also caused Susie trauma and pain.Chapter four analyzes Susie’s own ethical selections after she was killed,starting from ethical selections.George Harvey’s lack of humanity,the reason for the brutal killing of Susie and other innocent deaths;There is also the ethical selection of Jack and Abigail in the face of the natural and rational will.Finally,the full text is summarized and calls on everyone to pay more attention to the survival of women’s development.This thesis uses the theory of literary ethical criticism to analyze the ethical predicament and ethical selections faced by Sebold’s main characters in The Lovely Bones,and finally concludes that when we are inevitably hurt,our family will always miss us,and the love of our family is our strong backing.We must actively face the courage to get out of the difficulties and heal the wounds.