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 raft slides across the deck, launching itself into the ocean. Drowning, freezing people float in the water. Emilia tires to call out to those in the water, offering them a place to rest on her raft.
Having survived thus far, Emilia does her best to help other people survive as well.
Active
Themes
The Wilhelm Gustloff has sunk entirely, and Emilia thinks to herself, “how foolish to believe we are more powerful than the sea or the sky.”
After briefly believing that she has beaten the curse she believed had been placed on her life, Emilia once again feels as though she has been doomed from the beginning.