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
The refugees debate the best way to evacuate. Either way, they will have to walk for a long time to reach either Gotenhafen or Pillau. They wonder how best to transport their possessions, and decide to flag down a boat to take them, and lend their cart, with their possessions, to another family who will meet them in the city. Emilia considers how she no longer has any possessions. She thinks back to her father who once told her “you’re all I have” after her mother died.
While many refugees have been separated from their homes, they still can hold on to their possessions that remind them of the life they left behind. Emilia, in contrast, has nothing; she has lost her family, and she has lost every possession she ever owned. She is left with only her memories.
Themes
Emilia continues to think about the past. She remembers being sent to the Kleist family farm, and how she had to pretend she was not upset to leave her father. She remarks, “I became good at pretending,” so good that “sometimes, when I did a really good job of pretending, I even fooled myself.”
