Chapter 1/2 Flashcards
What happens in chapter one?
We are introduced to Susie who is narrating the story/her murder
What is special about Susie being the narrator?
Susie Salmon dies in the first chapter, for her to tell the story makes her a ghost narrator which plays on the fantasy genre
What is significant about the penguin in the snow globe in the prologue?
It symbolises Susie who is “trapped in a perfect world” in which she can have what she desires except her family
How does Sebold use fantasy elements in chapter one to build a story world?
The Earth story world is created through Susie’s point of view when she gives us flashbacks into her past
What shows that Harvey had planned to kill Susie?
He waited in the cornfield for her when she walked home from school
How did Mr Harvey entice Susie into the hole?
He said “I’ve built something back here” to play on her youthful curiosity
What is significant about the line “you’re mine now”
It shows Mr Harvey’s possessiveness over his victims, a trait learnt from his father’s attitude towards his mother
What is important about Susie’s rape?
Susie being the omnipotent ghost narrator spatial shifts by mentally going back home during her rape
What is the significance of the dinner Susie fantasised about?
Susie fantasised about her mother cooking lamb, symbolic of Susie who was a lamb sent to slaughter as soon as she went deeper into the cornfield
What can Susie do as the ghost narrator to allow her to metaphorically escape?
She can temporally and spatially shift
What is significant about the year of Susie’s death?
Susie died in 1973 which is when society was patriarchal and children/women had to be respectful and submissive to men
