The Lovely Bones (book)/ The blind side (movie) compariative essay

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Based on a true story, the Blind Side presents Sean Tuohy and Leigh Anne who are compassionate couples. The film belongs to a family and sports genre. The film talks about an American rich family that adopts a poor and homeless child. The film shows how this family shows the little black boy his way out of poverty. The adopting family is Christian like and white for that matter. It is rather idealistic given the prevailing circumstances. The other factor that makes the movie a bit idealistic is the fact that the film manifests some sense of glitches, some of which depicts a rich American family that is not able to hold the family together.
They demonstrate their humane attributes by taking in a homeless teenager in the name of Michael, also known among his pals as ‘Big Mike’ from African American decent. As a teenager, Mike seems to have had little as far as basic education is concerned. Besides, the young lad has no whereabouts of his father or even mother. It is however shown that the mother is a drug addict, a fact that partly shows why the teenager is homeless. As a mother, Leigh Anne takes it upon herself to ensure that Mike has every opportunity to make it in life. Mike on his part has a dying passion for football. He dies to go into the history books as one of the finest talents the world ever had. On learning this, Anne accords him every support he needs including giving some of the ideas to his coach just to ensure that the boy gets the best out of his talent and skills.

Besides, Anne went a notch higher, hiring tutors to help in improving his skills, something that she sees into fruition. As a result, Mike becomes the first round pick in the Baltimore Ravens.
Initially, Mike had been written off by most of his teachers at Wingate Christian School by his abysmal performance. He was believed to be unteachable, except by one teacher who identified him as a student with special learning approach.
The use of Mike in this film is a rather symbolic. One would then ponder whether or not young people, typical of Mike who are underachievers should be left alone or inspired to have something better to offer to society.
The lovely bones is a short narrative by a woman who happens to have been dead for some time since the 6th day of December 1973. Susie, like Salmon gives a narrative of her bitter past, her endurance of the paining agony she went through. She was just fourteen when she was attacked by her neighbor who raped and murdered her. The book gives a narrative into the events that occurred in the fateful chilly, snowy afternoon. Susie in her bid to get home quickly chooses to follow some shortcut to their suburban home in Pennsylvania. She sees a face that she recognizes in the cornfield though she does not remember any more details. This was Mr. Harvey. Something peculiar about Mr. Harvey is that he has an underground shelter with its door covered in mud. With his persuasive skills, Mr. Harvey manages to persuade Susie to get with him into the hole. Realizing that she must have made a wrong move, Susie attempts to find her way out only to be knocked by her predator who kills her in the process. The book now tells us that Susie is in heaven and which she comes to learn that the heaven she is in is her personal heaven that everybody is entitled to upon death.
Detectives, on their pursuit for truth and facts behind Susie’s death, goes to their homestead and shows Susie’s parents, their late daughter’s elbow bone. Susie seems to bear nostalgic feelings as she misses the people she loves so much that she can’t forget thing about them. Despite all the niceties, she still has the pain of never getting to interact freely with her loved ones. In her heaven, there are mansions upon which everything is readily available. She has an ambient environment that is characterized by odd comfort. As a spirit, Susie helplessly watches how her death has deeply affected her sorry parents.
It occurs that to Susie; her mother is her true self when not looked at by anybody. What Susie sees in her grief is Abigail’s sorrow over the loss of herself to many roles that includes ensuring that she fills the family life and not have the time for the real Abigail. Susie makes use of metaphor in comparing her mother’s eyes to an ocean. “Like the ocean,” she says, “Her eyes are deep and endless and none can tell whatever therein.” It is apparent that it is not only Susie who sees the oceanic attributes of her mother’s eye. Jack and Len are no exceptions.
The story also touches on Susie’s private life when in her schoolbooks, letters from her lover Ray Singh is found. Singh is apparently the first and only lover of Susie. The young man had slipped the love piece into Susie’s books just a day before her demise. It is unfortunate, at least as per the story that Susie passes on without even getting time to read the letter. Singh was a sharp looking young man who seemed alert at all. However, his sobriety did not last long after it occurred to him that his love had succumbed to injuries from her violator. It hurts to see her love grieve in pain for he misses her. The loss has even seen Ray drop out of school. Susie watches with rage at her murderer who owns a dollhouse and builds several for his income. Mr. Harvey calmly goes about his errands and lives a comfortable life uninterrupted. No one knows what he did except Susie.
Mr. Harvey is also depicted as a monstrous individual. Before killing Susie, he had killed several other girls and kept their parts. As he dismantles the ground where he had killed Susie, Susie watches in disbelief how inhuman Mr. Harvey is. Having put every Susie’s parts together, Mr. Harvey heads for a shower. As he does so, he reflects on the events that led to Susie’s death and even marvels at how interesting it was to kill Susie. Mr. Harvey then heads for safe and dumps Susie’s body into some sinkhole that is situated about eight miles from their neighborhood in Pennsylvania.
Chocked by the grief of losing a daughter, Susie’s father smashes and throws away a bottle that Susie often helped him with. He tries to delink himself with the sad realities of nature. Her loss had gotten the best of him. As he smashes the glasses, he sees Susie’s projections in every piece of the glass he smashes. It is during this time that Susie’s brother catches up with his father and comforts him. When he pays Mr. Harvey a courtesy call, he decides to give him a helping hand in fixing some old structure. The daughter sends him a ghostly signal that he seems to have decoded. He begins to have his suspicions on Mr. Harvey.
The ultimate wish that Susie has been that she gets back to her physical form. She even wishes that she gets back to her normal life for a little while so that she can make love to her boyfriend Ray. As the book comes to a conclusion, Susie offers a final glimpse of her attacker and killer. As he attempts to strike another unsuspecting girl, he gets foiled by some icicle. Mr. Harvey would then breathe his last as he plunged into death in a ravine.
There is a sharp contrast in the two books and or film. Mike is a boy who never went to school due to lack of shelter and other necessities. He later finds himself a comforting and hospitable family who welcomes and revives his hopes in life. The family with the efforts of Anne sees to it that the boy gets his wish and even revitalizes his vision if not revitalizing them. Susie is a young lady with her visions but later sees her visions and dreams thwarted by a heinous man who rapes and kills her.