An Observer In The Heaven

Alice Sebold (1965-) is one of the most prominent living writers in America. The first work to win her international recognition, The Lovey Bones was published in 2002, and gained her immediate popularity in the United States. It won the Bram Stoker Award for Novel from the Horror Writers Association in 2002, and Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction from the American Booksellers Association in 2003. The novel is actually based on Sebold’s personal traumatic experiences. The protagonist, Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl, acts as the narrator. Having been raped and killed by a neighbor, she goes to the heaven where she can see what happens in the earthly world. The novel is thus narrated by this observer in the heaven, who is able to recount what happens to her and other characters before and after her death. Her omniscient awareness enables her to disclose the inner feelings of herself and other important women figures, which makes it possible for the reader to know her feelings as a female victim and also other females’feelings toward her death. This disclosure has a feminist connotation, which is realized through this posthumous identity. Therefore, the success of the novel owes much to this in-the-heaven narrator.In the essay, the author analyzes the narrator from the perspectives of feminist narratology. In the introduction, the author provides the information of the author Alice Sebold, the plot and literature reviews of the novel. The first chapter provides a theoretical foundation for the essay, including a brief introduction to the narratology, research status, and the theory’s significance to the novel. Chapter Two discusses the focalization of the narrator. The analysis of the internal focalization aims to explain in what sense gender influences the narrator when she is uncovering the inner feelings of those female figures in the novel. The zero focalization deconstructs the patriarchy. The omniscience on the murderer Mr. Harvey unveils a crucial childhood experience, which reveals that his father’s brutalities on his mother is what leads to his later twisted inhumanity. The disclosure of all the crimes he has done indicates women’s vulnerability to sexual assault. Chapter Three interprets the feminist implications on a discourse level, trying to find out how the narrative authority is constructed. It focuses on the narrator’s voice from the perspectives of personal voice, communal voice and free indirect speech. Being a homodiegetic narrator, Susie is able to construct her narrative authority. And by addressing "you" at the end of the story, she achieves an engaging narration, narrowing the distance between the narrator and the reader. In view of her victimhood, Susie’s voice can often be seen as a representative of the similar female victims. Thus her voice is sometimes a communal one that can accentuate the underlying purpose of the novel that the sexual assault will be paid more attention to. The free indirect speech allows the female figures to have their own voice and authority, despite Susie’s first person narration.Through an ingenious arrangement of the narrator’s focalization and voice, the construction of the female subjectivity and the narrative authority, as well as the deconstruction of the patriarchy have been unaffectedly written into a touching story, clarifying the feminist implications in an unconventional way.