The postmortal rape survivor and the paradox of female agency across different media: Alice Sebold’s novel The Lovely Bones and its 2009 film adaptation

Abstract

Alice’s Sebold’s 2002 bestseller, The Lovely Bones, challenges the silencing process surrounding the crime of rape by paradoxically establishing a postmortal rape survivor as its narrator. The paper traces how the narrator’s voice and agency are negotiated and supported, and how and where the 2009 film adaptation diverges from the novel’s feminist agenda. While both film and novel seek to condemn violence against women, the film sets out to do it by casting female characters in the role of helpless victims, whereas the original medium establishes them as canny survivors.