Kelso High School English Department

Chapter Twenty Two

In today’s lesson we will: Analyse chapter twenty two of the text in relation to: plot structure : climax characterisation: Susie Ray theme :Coming of Age

Plot Discuss briefly with your partner the main events of chapter twenty two. Check that your chapter summary notes include all relevant information.

Plot The rational part of the reader will want to reject what happens here just as it will want to reject the whole premise of Susie watching from heaven all these years. However, the side of the reader willing to suspend his disbelief will read a wonderful, loving story of a girl, doomed to never grow up, suddenly, through the grace of Heaven, receiving her greatest desire. Mr. Harvey, “unloved and unbidden,” drives away and with that, evil finally leaves and love flows in. Now Susie can capitalise both Heaven and Earth.

Plot This chapter shows things working out as they should. This started in the previous chapter when Harvey was prevented from going all the way back to the Salmon house. Likewise, in an ideal world, heroes would be welcomed in heaven (as Ruth is) and lovers would get another chance, as Susie does

Structure: Climax The climax of a plot is the major turning point that allows the protagonist to resolve the conflict. This moment occurs when Susie has her greatest wish fulfilled: she makes love with Ray Singh through the miracle of entering Ruth’s body. This allows her to “grow up” and so enter the Heaven where she truly belongs.

Structure: Climax It is very uplifting, because it shows how love triumphs in the end. Or is it because the girl who died after a rape has experienced a loving relationship as part of the general healing in the book?

Characterisation: Susie As Susie learns what being dead means, she must deal with what being alive means as well. The fact she can no longer experience the physical world— that she can no longer experience living—emerges as her biggest disappointment. The novel then offers experiencing the physical as an attribute of living. Although she has "returned" in a disembodied form when she inhabits Ruth's body, Susie "realises that the marvelous weight weighing [her] down was the weight of the human body." The novel shows the preciousness of life.

Characterisation: Ray He says, “Susie, you know I’m not like that.“ This is the first time he has called Ruth’s body by the name of the soul who now inhabits it. Now he is beginning to realise the wondrous miracle that has happened. Susie tells him who she is and how she has watched him for years, wanting more than anything for him to make love to her.

Theme: Coming of Age The coming-of-age novel involves the initiation of the protagonist into adulthood. Just as Lindsey must figure out how to grow up—what it means to live, Susie must figure out what it means not to grow up—what it means to be dead. She learns that like the living, she, too, must journey. Susie also learns that the dead, like the living, must let go, not easy for a girl who wants so desperately to live.

Theme: Coming of Age Susie does return to earth. She falls into Ruth's body, initiated partly by Susie's longing to kiss Ray one more time and see where that kiss would lead, and also by Ruth's desire to understand the dead, to see them. Ruth desires to leave earth, and Susie desires to return. After this incident, Susie watches with love and pleasure as her family reconfigures into a new family, one that does and does not include her.

The End!