Allusions

“The Lovely Bones” is set in the 1970s, meaning that there are multiple culture differences.

One thing I found was on page 21, Mr. Harvey was just starting to r*ape Susie, and he said “‘take off your parka'”. I had never heard of an article of clothing being refered to as a para before. Originally I just shrugged it off, but it came up a few more times. Apparently everyone owned a parka! Once I googled it I learned that it was just a fancy name for a coat. Did anyone know what this meant when they first read it?

In the beginning of Chapter two, page 30, Susie is in heaven talking about what her life would have been like if she lived to go to high school. She describes what she would be like and mentions that she would wear her “hair feathered or up in a bun”. Obviously I knew what a bun is and could picture it quite easily in my head. But not feathered hair. I learned that is was a popular hairstyle in the 1970s where you would layer your hair with a side or center cut. It was supposed to give it a feathered appearance, but I think it just looks like bedhead mixed with windblown hair.

The beginning of chapter 6 is where Susie starts to talk about her love life on Earth. But it all starts from her being late to school. And she had to sneak around and ran into her crush because of the fear of being caught late. Since apparently the principal would ‘bend you over and paddle your behind with a board”. So I did some research cause this is illegal now for (hopefully) obvious reasons. I apologize now for using Wikipedia, but all other websites were other countries or where it was still legal to hit students. (Surprise-it is allowed in 19 states.) Each state outlawed it at different times, but most in the late 70s early 80s. So while it surprised me, apparently it was common and a very reasonable fear for Susie to have. And it helped to spark love as well so it couldn’t have been too bad…jk.