52 pages • 1-hour read
A Sea of Unspoken Things
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Essay Topics
Discuss the novel’s depiction of mother figures by comparing and contrasting Sadie with James and Johnny’s mother. Examine the novel’s ideas about how both maternal abandonment and overprotectiveness can have consequences.
Analyze Johnny’s character. What are his strengths and flaws, and how do these traits shape his relationships with his friends and family?
How does James’s bond with Johnny both help and hinder each of them? How do their fraught family dynamics become both a source of mutual support and emotional damage?
Discuss the importance of setting in the novel. How does the rural wilderness around the town of Six Rivers shape the town’s culture, its inhabitants, and their relationships?
Buried secrets are a recurring theme in this novel. Choose one character and analyze how secrets from the past shape their identity, relationships, and choices.
Some of the novel’s characters are happy to remain in Six Rivers, while others feel that they must escape the confines of the isolated town. Choose any two of these characters and examine how they understand happiness and success.
Discuss the importance of owls and the CAS project to Johnny’s characterization. How does his work on the owl study help him to explore his identity? What does it reveal about his search for purpose or redemption?
Discuss Olivia’s characterization. Is she a true antagonist, or do certain aspects of her character complicate that label?
Evaluate James’s choice to return to Six Rivers. What does this choice reveal about her growth and evolving values?
Analyze how the author enhances suspense in the novel. What key elements of plot, characterization, symbolism, and setting help to create tension?
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