Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Salt to the Sea, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Agency, Willpower, and Fate
Storytelling and Fantasy
Memory and Survival
Family and Community vs. Selfishness
Summary
Analysis
As she walks, Emilia thinks back to her childhood with her mother. They would sit in the forest together and her mother would tell her about all the stories the trees held.
Memories of her mother telling stories, as well as the specific stories her mother told, help comfort Emilia.
Themes
Back home, Emilia also loved waiting for storks to pass through her village each spring, where they would nest. Emilia’s family set up a pole with a wheel on top for storks to nest in, and they came every March, leaving in August, symbolizing the end of summer. Thinking about endings and departures makes Emilia think of her mother again, who died in childbirth six years ago. Thinking about her past is hard for Emilia, but she hopes that the trees in the forest will somehow carry a message from her to her mother.
Thinking about her family helps motivate Emilia to carry on, but it also brings her grief. She associates the storks with her home, and with happier times. When she thinks of them, she always thinks of her family, alive and unified. Emilia maintains her connection to her family and to her past. She imagines a kind of supernatural connection to her mother, which comforts her.
Themes
