The Lovely Bones

People express their social beliefs in many different ways. Living in New York I have the opportunity to see a wide array of social commentary expressed in different ways. Walking down the street I see graffiti expressing opinions, and I see billboards full of controversial adds. Another prominent place that I see social commentary is in the books I read.   

The book, The Lovely Bones, by American author Alice Sebold is full of social commentary, however the social commentary that is the most prominent throughout the book is about race. The Lovely Bones is a book about a girl named Suise Salmon, who was murdered. This book is written from the prospective of Suise who is looking over the earth from her new home in heaven. The book includes multiple flashbacks from when Susie was alive, as well as a continuous story line taking place during the current time. An interesting part of this book that allows a more comprehensive racial social commentary is that the book takes place in 1973. This allows social commentary about strong race injustice.

In The Lovely Bones characters who are not white are considered inferior and delinquent. The author conveys this by expressing the police’s thoughts about the first suspect in Suise’s murder, Ray Singh, a young Indian boy who had a crush schoolboy on Suise. When they were questioning Ray the police “..were fueled by guilt they read into Ray’s dark skin…” In other words, the believed he was guilty for a reason none other than his skin color. Another moment in the book when a race injustice was quite apparent was in the beginning in the book when Suise’s friend Clarrisa made a comment about Ray Singh, she stated that his facial features were “freak-a-delic,” this was because Ray’s eyes were different from hers.

In conclusion, The Lovely Bones has a strong focus on social commentary about race. This was proven by the many times where the white characters act as though the characters of color are inferior. This book was able to convey this race injustice because it was written in the 1970’s , a transitional time in the United State’s history. This was a time when racial equality was controversial. Overall, The Lovely Bones sheds light on the racial divide in the 20^th century, while still being a fantastic read.