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164. Alfred
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 ship has sunk. Florian looks at the lifeboat and realizes they could have fit the Poet and Emilia. He considers his pack. Everything—his papers, his forgery tools, the swan—was in it. He wonders why he engaged in “The endless circle of revenge: answering pain by inflicting pain.” It doesn’t seem to matter now. He wonders if the Amber Room really is cursed.
Florian begins to feel guilty that his friends have died (or are presently dying) when he could have saved them. He realizes for the first time that by fixating on the swan, the past, and revenge, he prevented himself from truly living in the present, or planning for a better future.
Themes
