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Josef: On the Atlantic Ocean – 1939, 17 days
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Refugee, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Coming of Age
Injustice and Cruelty vs. Empathy and Social Responsibility
Hope vs. Despair
Family, Displacement, and Culture
Invisibility and the Refugee Experience
Summary
Analysis
Isabel continues to bail water out of the boat, alongside Teresa, Geraldo, Lito, Luis, Iván, and Señora Castillo. They work feverishly, but the boat fills as quickly as they can bail, and the motor still isn’t functioning. The storm clouds start to deliver a driving rain, and sea spray stings Isabel’s eyes.
As the situation becomes more and more dire, Isabel is plagued by a sense of doubt that the Fernandezes and Castillos will be able to reach Florida. Still, they recognize that all they can do is place their hope in the boat’s ability to get them there and try to rid it of water.
Themes
In the storm, Isabel thinks about the last time she saw Lita, her grandmother. Isabel had been nine years old, and she was staying with Lita and Lito while her parents were fighting. A giant cyclone came, which Castro and the government had not warned them about nor protected them from. Their shack was swept into the ocean; Lito and Isabel held onto each other, but Lita was swept away. Lito senses what Isabel is thinking about and comforts her as they continue to bail water out of the boat.
In this flashback, too, the water represents despair and hopelessness as Lita is swept out to sea. It is also this kind of trauma, exacerbated by the oppressive government under which Isabel in her family lived, that caused Isabel to become much more mature and gain a sense of what it means to be an adult.
Themes
