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A Life With Meaning In Jaina Bahirwani's 'Salt To The Sea'

859 Words4 Pages

A Life with Relationships is a Life with Meaning
Jaina Bahirwani (orange)

Without relationships and bonds, life is meaningless; however, it is never too late to form new connections.

Strip ideas down, use words other than life to avoid repetition of ideas

Some might believe that facing life and everything it throws at us by ourselves is how to live to the fullest. Nonetheless, this is invalidated in Ruta Sepetys’ Salt to the Sea, as the author is able to illustrate how insignificant one’s existence is when it doesn’t include others. The idea that relationships are what supports us through life is portrayed with dialogue, characterization, and metaphors as Sepetys shows how one of the protagonists of the novel, Emilia, feels about her situation and her secrets, then how her melancholy feelings changes as she creates new ties. This novel shows how light can be found if surrounded by people who allow it to be seen. With her remarkable writing, Sepetys suggests that, without relationships and bonds, life is meaningless; however, it is never too late to form new connections.

The book begins with Emilia 's tragic, torturous past and meaningless life with no true relationships having been discovered. Emilia’s depressing feelings are shown explicitly as she pleads: “‘Shoot me, soldier. Please’” (6). This conveys that Emilia does not care for her life, by not only accepting death but asking for it too. She would rather be dead than withstand what she is going through. Emilia’s dark past of getting raped puts a storm over her whole …show more content…

Instead, the message being conveyed is that having strong relationships and bonds is the way to live to the fullest and a means to find the light that one needs to shine. In the span of three hundred ninety-one pages, Sepetys is able to indicate that life is always worth living - if there is someone to live it

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