Almost every novel has both strengths and weaknesses in its literary elements. In Salt to the Sea, a historical fiction novel written by Ruta Sepetys, both strengths and weaknesses within the story elements are present. This novel follows four teenage/young adult narrators: Florian, a Prussian art replicator, Joana, a pretty Lithuanian nurse, Emilia, a pregnant, innocent Polish girl, and Alfred, a near-delusional German Nazi sailor with sociopathic tendencies. The story follows them on their journeys during the Holocaust and World War II in East Prussia and aboard the ill-fated ship Wilhelm Gustloff. The novel is fictional, but it still brings to light important events and circumstances that real people experienced during this period. While …show more content…
The exposition consists mostly of Joana, Emilia, and Florian traveling to Gotenhafen, where they will later board the ship. They arrive around page 161, and the rising action begins around this time. They spend a while in Gotenhafen, and on page 256, they board the boat. The book has 378 pages, for reference, and the climax occurs around page 316, extremely late in the book. At the beginning of the novel, a lot of time is spent following the characters fleeing their homelands in search of freedom. The characters all meet relatively late in the book when the rising action begins. This drags out, as it takes a long time for the characters to get to the ship port and board the boat. The climax, which is the sinking of the ship, occurs towards the end of the book, and the falling action and resolution play out quickly and forgettably. The story structure is uneven. The first two-thirds of the book is boring and trudges on with nothing substantial happening. There is a spurt of action when the characters meet and the story launches into the rising action, but this also trudges along and is quite boring. The best part of the book is the climax, which occurs too …show more content…
Once the traveling group reaches Gotenhafen, where they will board the Wilhelm Gustloff, they find an abandoned movie house and decide to take shelter there. When walking through the door to the movie house, Joana thoughtfully tells the shoe poet, an elderly man who is part of their group, “We should leave [the door] open. others will need a place to stay too” (Sepentys 161). Later, while on a raft after the sinking of the ship, Emilia speaks Polish. She had been hiding her true identity to protect herself. Once the Polish registers in his head, Alfred, a Nazi, screams, “Filthy Pole”. You are a liar! Finally, I will serve my country. [one less]!” (Sep. 361). These quotes demonstrate the contrast between Joana and Alfred and illustrate how they are almost perfect inverses. Alfred tries to kill Emilia because of her race, and Joana wants to help anyone who may need it, no matter their race. Their opposing qualities highlight both sides of the war. Joana’s kind personality is made even more prominent by the contrast between her and Alfred’s cold, uncaring personality. This foil makes the characterization present in the story stronger and allows the reader to understand the characters on a deeper level. It is easy for the reader to get bored of Alfred’s narration, as he isn’t a part of the core character group and is so different from them. His main purpose is
They stayed here during the winter while Alicia still searched for food, in the process, making many friends. News came one day that the Germans were beginning to fall back from the Russian fronts and Germany’s grip on the Jews in Poland was weakening. This news made Alicia and her mother move away from the old man who helped them.
Throughout the novel Liesel reaches new highs and new lows, overcoming her fears and succumbing to her anger. Liesel's sudden outburst at Ilsa Hermann after Ilsa asking to stop the laundry services caused her to finally accept her brother's death and even helped Ilsa accept her son's death as well. Ilsa's guilt consumed her and caused her to become a house ridden woman overcome by her grief while Liesel overcame her guilt and grief by learning how to read and write not allowing them to overcome her. "“It’s about time,” she [Liesel] informed her, “that you do your own stinking washing anyway. It’s about time you faced the fact that your son is dead. He got killed! He got strangled and cut up more than twenty years ago! Or did he freeze to death? Either way, he’s dead! He’s dead and it’s pathetic that you sit here shivering in your own house to suffer for it. You think you’re the only one?” Immediately. Her brother was next to her. He whispered for her to stop, but he, too, was dead, and not worth listening to. He died in a train. They buried him in the snow. […] “This book,” she went on. She shoved the boy down the steps, making him fall. “I don’t want it.” The words were quieter now, but still just as hot. She threw The Whistler at the woman’s slippered feet, hearing the clack of it as it landed on the cement. “I don’t want your miserable book. ”[…] her brother holding his
. . I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at heart.” This quote shows that act two, scene four fits into the structure and theme of the play because Anne shows Peter that there is hope. Past everything that the Van Daans, Franks, and Dussel have been through Anne believes that the holocaust will pass. Anne keeps the hope alive through the families and gives them a reason to survive. During this part of the scene, Natzi’s are heard shouting up the stairs, Anne’s family gathers their things and prepares to be taken away to concentration camps. For example, In the play the stage direction shows, “Anne stands, holding her school satchel, looking over at her father and mother with a soft, reassuring smile. She is no longer a child, but a woman with courage to meet whatever lies ahead.” This quote fits into the overall structure and theme of the play because when Anne knew she was going to be taken away from her family, she gave her family hope by smiling, reassuring the Franks everything was going to be ok. In Anne’s last moments of the play she was ready to face the world, no matter the harsh treatment because she had
It begins as a very shallow storyline, but as the story progresses, you learn different aspects of the story and interpret different meanings for what is happening. You begin to connect the dots in the story, and understand plotline at the beginning of the book that would have never been understood. I believe that Lois Lowry achieved their purpose to make this book with a storyline that I have only seen made by this author. This writing style used by Lois Lowry creates a sense that you are inferring many aspects of the story that have not been told. Everything that makes up the story has not been told, and this creates a need to keep reading. I would definitely recommend others to read
The book Then is set in Poland during the period of the Holocaust and Nazis in 1942. The book is about the two orphans, Felix and Zelda, who escaped from a train that travel to a Nazi death camp for Jewish people. They struggled to survive without food or water. They met Genia, a farmer who became their guardian and provided a shelter and kindness to the two children. Felix and Zelda embarked on a terrifying journey to disguise their identity, escape from sinister Nazi soldiers and overcome challenges and suspicions of Genia’s neighbours.
Sarah and her mother are sought out by the French Police after an order goes out to arrest all French Jews. When Sarah’s little brother starts to feel the pressures of social injustice, he turns to his sister for guidance. Michel did not want to go with the French Police, so he asks Sarah to help him hide in their secret cupboard. Sarah does this because she loves Michel and does not want him to be discriminated against. Sarah, her mother, and her father get arrested for being Jewish and are taken to a concentration camp just outside their hometown. Sarah thinks Michel, her beloved brother, will be safe. She says, “Yes, he’d be safe there. She was sure of it. The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel. I’ll come back for you later. I promise” (Rosnay 9). During this time of inequality, where the French were removing Sarah and her mother just because they were Jewish, Sarah’s brother asked her for help. Sarah promised her brother she would be back for him and helped him escape his impending arrest. Sarah’s brother believed her because he looks up to her and loves her. As the story continues, when Sarah falls ill and is in pain, she also turns to her father for comfort, “at one point she had been sick, bringing up bile, moaning in pain. She had felt her father’s hand upon her, comforting her” (Rosnay 55).
...and strength to break away from society. Personification is used to describe the sea. "The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation" (Chopin 50-51). The sea also plays metaphorical roles in the story standing as chaos and danger. This comes in to play when Edna goes into the sea and it takes her life.
Some of the most intriguing stories of today are about people’s adventures at sea and the thrill and treachery of living through its perilous storms and disasters. Two very popular selections about the sea and its terrors are The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger and “The Wreck of the Hesperus” by Henry Longfellow. Comparison between the two works determines that “The Wreck of the Hesperus” tells a more powerful sea-disaster story for several different reasons. The poem is more descriptive and suspenseful than The Perfect Storm, and it also plays on a very powerful tool to captivate the reader’s emotion. These key aspects combine to give the reader something tangible that allows them to relate to the story being told and affects them strongly.
Mrs.Johansen is Annemarie’s mother, she is a very strong, determined, and smart woman “Friends will take care of them. thats what friends do. ”she helps the roses by hiding ellen and pretending that she is their daughter. Mr. Johansen is Annemarie’s father, he is the same as her mother but more courageous and brave. ” we don’t know where the germans are taking the jews and we dont know what that means we only know that its is wrong, and it dangerous and we must help”.
... Now, because Editha remained naïve about the issues of war and the loss of her husband, she resumed to believe that sending George off was the right decision. “If Editha had changed her views, she would have had to admit to herself that she sent George off to die in a war and fought for the wrong reasons. Why live with the guilt when there is the ability to pretend that George died for very noble purposes” (Belasco and Johnson 113-24). Editha limits her fault by remaining unaware and therefore feels innocent of the harm she’s inflicted on the people she cares about. The significance of the stories is to appreciate life for what it’s worth. We are given a chance to create something extraordinary and trying to change those around us will affect us for the worst. The accepting of others for who they truly are is what defines the character of one person from the next.
People cannot choose the time to live and die. Ginzburg had to live through the horrors of war: destroyed houses, air raids, arrests, and death. She shows how the war not only deprives people of their belongings, but also distorts the primary meaning of things and concepts. The world “police” no longer bears the meaning of protection and help but rather that of fear and suspicion. All pretty things that decorate a house, as well as the house itself, come to be viewed simply as raw material that will eventually turn to dust. Children of the war had seen too much terror and suffering in real life; therefore, Ginzburg asserts that this makes it impossible to raise children telling them fairy tales as the previous generations did. The only advantage the Ginzburg’s generation got from the war is the ability to see and speak the truth. As the generation of men they have no illusion they will find some peace or certainty in life, but they have found “strength” and “toughness” to “face whatever reality may confront” them and they are “glad of their destiny”.
Jan’s wife, Antonia, was incredibly compassionate for animals, treating them as if they were her own children. Unfortunately, all of this came to an end when Germany invaded Poland in September of 1939. The couple’s zoo was just another casualty in the mass destruction of the city. After becoming involved with resistance movements against Nazis, Jan and Antonia began to give refuge to Jews that had escaped the Warsaw Ghetto. Referring to them as “guests”, the couple disguised the refugees as helpers, relatives, and even hid them in the empty animal cages that sprawled the zoo. The theme of bravery and courage is very pronounced throughout the novel – with the main characters endangering their lives just to help those in need. Later on, Jan joins the Resistance where he is taken hostage, leaving Antonia to fend for herself. Despite being threatened by German soldiers, Antonia powers through the overwhelming fear and manages to push through until the war comes to an end. Jan then returns from a concentration camp and the two begin to rebuild their
At the time of Hitler’s election, her father, a well known Jewish journalist, is told that his passport may soon be taken away as he is known for his articles written against the Nazis and Hitler. Upon hearing this, he secretly leaves for Prague. Anna is distraught when she sees that her father is gone, but is reassured that he will come back if Hitler loses the elections.
Sophie was a Polish women and a survivor of Auschwitz, a concentration camp established in Germany during the Holocaust in the early 1940s. In the novel we learn about her through her telling of her experiences, for instance, the murder of her husband and her father. We also come to learn of the dreadful decision she was faced with upon entering the concentration camp, where she was instructed to choose which one of her two children would be allowed to live. She chose her son. Later we learn of her short lived experience as a stenographer for a man by the name of Rudolph Hoss, the Commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. During her time there, Sophie attempted to seduce Hoss in an attempt to have her son transferred to the Lebensborn program so that he may have been raised as a German child. Sophie's attempt was unsuccessful and she was returned back to t...
The novel also highlights the passionate relationship between Henry and Catherine Barkley, a British nurse in Italy. Henry’s insight into the war and his intense love for Catherine emphasize that love and war are the predominant themes in the novel and these themes contribute to bringing out the implicit and explicit meaning of the novel. Being a part of the Italian army, Henry is closely involved with the war and has developed an aversion to the war. Henry’s association with the war has also made him realise that war is inglorious and the sacrifices made in war are meaningless. Specifically, Henry wants the war to end because he is disillusioned by the war and knows that war is not as glorious as it is made up to be.