How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
"What if I don't accept any of them?"
He hesitated. "Miss Doyle, I thought I made it clear. There are no other choices."
"You're wrong," I said. And so saying, I turned and rushed out of his cabin, along the steerage and into the waist of the ship. (21.50-21.52)
The captain gives Charlotte three choices: she can be disgraced, she can beg for mercy, or she can be hanged. (Hm, how about none of the above?) Not surprisingly, Charlotte rejects all of these options and decides, instead, to go with a choice all her own. Is it significant that she doesn't take any of the paths offered to her by the captain? Are you impressed that she's finally making a decision all on her own? (We sure are.) And how does this relate to the choice Charlotte makes at the end of the book?
Quote #11
Something Zachariah told me filled my mind and excited my heart: "A sailor," he said, "chooses the wind that takes the ship from safe port... but winds have a mind of their own." (22.206)
Charlotte has made her final and most significant decision: she's leaving her family and rejoining the crew on the Seahawk. We might see the choice as a very positive one (at long last, she's doing just what she wants to do!), but what does Zachariah's mention of the wind mean? Can Charlotte ever completely control her own destiny?