ipl-logo

Theme Of Perseverance In Salt To The Sea

1076 Words5 Pages

When darkness consumes you, and the pain becomes unbearable, you look to the light; to perseverance to guide you through the hell you face. With calamitous tragedies and bone chilling circumstances, will Emilia persevere through her pain? In Ruta Sepetys’ Salt to the Sea, one of the protagonists, Emilia, faces myriads of emotional and physical hardships throughout the novel. Bruised and battered, she perseveres through her hardships, showing how much a person can endure when they really persist. Sepetys takes the consequences of Emilia’s pain and emotional damage to new heights with her war-themed novel; as a result of this, perseverance is articulated amongst many other traits that this character possesses, showing how imperative of a trait …show more content…

However, she also gets through these hardships due to her trait of perseverance. These emotional hardships Emilia faces really illustrate to the reader how much she goes through and makes one wonder how much a person can endure before conceding to the pressures? An obstacle she faces in the book that is of immense significance is when the reader finds out Emilia’s secret of being pregnant. “She seems terrified’, said Eva. ’She probably is, She’s eight months pregnant [said Joana]” (82). In addition to being a physical burden on her body, the emotional stress and impact this has on her makes this an emotional hardship which Emilia withstands. The main reason this pregnancy might take an emotional toll is because Emilia knows that the child belongs to a Russian Soldier who she had been raped by. The baby in her stomach belongs to a man who physically violated her rights, and a man she never spoke to in her life. The toll this has on her mental state is catastrophic. However, you can see that Emilia does not complain and she not only has the child, but she cares for it; she loves it. Emilia is persevering through life to forget about her horrendous past no matter how deeply it has scarred her, and she does not let what has happened before ruin her future. Not only this, but there is another part of the book where Emilia’s sheer show of perseverance aids her in the hardship she faces. “He cried when he told me he was sending me to Kleist’s farm in East Prussia, I wanted to cry too. I wanted to scream and refuse. But it hurt so much seeing him lose all that he loved. So I assured him that he was right, it was for the best and that I was not upset” (147). “But it hurt seeing him lose all that he loved” demonstrates how grief-stricken Emilia was due to what happened. However, she sees her father crying and does not want him to feel more hurt, hence she perseveres through her

Open Document