Theme Of Fear In Salt To The Sea

Ruta Sepetys’ novel, Salt to the Sea, tells the story of four strangers that come together to survive the hardships of escaping one country to another. Each of the four strangers battles to save one another while trying to escape on a boat called the Wilhelm Gustloff. Each person makes it on the boat with hope and his or her own set of issues. One major issue that one of the protagonists, Florian, faces is fear. Because the journey to safety is tough for each character and staying together is extremely important, Florian’s fear begins to affect his decisions, which also affects those around him. One of the themes Ruta Sepetys teaches the reader is that fear can affect others negatively and lead to serious consequences. From the start of …show more content…
Fear can make you afraid to be yourself because of what conflicts can happen with the others around you. Sepetys writes this all throughout her book to create a theme. She uses different characters and conflicts to bring out her theme of that fear can make you nervous which doesn’t let you think correctly. She creates fear by using different objects such as forged passes and the amber swan. Florian shows that he is nervous about his pass on (page 116). “Special pass. It looked real. Perhaps my best work ever. The soldier on the road didn’t question. He saluted me for the special mission the pass defined. My attitude had to match the level of forgery. If I appeared confident they wouldn’t question.” This shows that he is fearful about his forged pass, but he know that if he doesn't act nervous then he won’t be inspected. Ruta Sepetys uses the words “My attitude had to match the level of forgery,” to show that Florian knew he couldn’t do anything or say anything wrong because the soldier would then inspect him further. This connects to the claim because in this moment Florian is only thinking about how he has to be careful and not thinking about the people around