Guilt In Joana's Salt To The Sea

One theme of Salt to the Sea is that fear, guilt, fate and shame affect everyone and causes them to do different things. Joana describes that “guilt is a hunter” (1) and that she is a “hostage to it.” (603) Every where so goes someone is loves dies or is taken from her. She lives with this guilt that she should have done more to save them, even though there is nothing more that she could really do. Florian relates fate to being a “hunter” (29) and he also repeats that in the epilogue of the novel. No matter what Florian does everything seems to still add up the same way in the end. He tries to avoid being responsible for others but in the end he ends up with Emilia’s baby and the young boy to take care of. Fate always finds a way to win in the end against Florian and he doesn't try to accept it until after the war is over.

She feels ashamed that she allowed that to happen even though there was nothing she could do. Disappointed that she cheated on her “boyfriend” August who was never actually more than a friend and that she was never able to reunite with her father. In the end she wasn’t able to make it on to the lifeboat with her child. She floats in the ocean becoming one with with the “shame (that was) all around me now.” (606) Finally Alfred describes “fear is hunter” (33) (609) due to the fact that Alfred would like to do daring and bold things but fear always holds him back. He pretends to hold a big position as one of the lead crew members when in actually he is nothing. He lives in fear of his old bullies, supervisors and of doing the right thing. He controls him completely so he just does whatever people tell him which is why he follows Hitler’s rules so well. I believe that in the end it was fear that killed