Meaning of The Sea of Flames chapter

[Calliope Saban]

    At the end of the book in chapter 12, 30 years have passed and we revisit some of the characters and see how their lives have changed. But there is one chapter that deals not with a person, but with the Sea of Flames, describing the gem's entire existence. Why do you think the author included this? I think it is to put this entire story into perspective, showing how even something as momentous as the Second World War is only one small blip in the history of this unfathomably ancient world, and that time will always continue on, regardless of the past.

[elizabeth miller]

Yes I agree with that. I think that that chapter was put in because by the end of the book the gem had in a sense become its own character. It persuaded people and tricked them. The Sea of Flames was powerful and by the end of the novel because we learned about the futures of the other characters it seems right that we learned what happened to the object that joined the two people together. If the chapter hadn't been put in it might have seemed like a loose end.

[stefanie]

The author gave the Sea of Flames its own chapter because the gem itself did have its own story as well, just like any other of the characters (since Werner's story ended before he did not have a chapter to himself). "One year, one day, one hour, a great upflow of magma gathers a seam of crystals and drives it toward the surface, mile after burning mile; it cools inside a huge, smoking xenolith of kimberlite, and there it waits... where eventually it finds, one evening, the attention of a prince who knows what he is looking for...Another hour, another day, another year. Lump of carbon no larger than a chestnut. Mantled with algae, bedecked with barnacles. Crawled over by snails. It stirs among the pebbles" (Doerr 520). The author chose to have the Sea of Flames be featured 30 years later since the gem itself was essentially a character as well, and that it had its own story from when it was discovered by the prince to how it got into the museum and how it ended up in the cave of snails where Marie-Laure placed it. The stone had an ending, just like all the characters did.

[sofiamq123]

I agree with Stefanie, the author wanted to tell readers the story of this special rock. A theme that is commonly displayed in the book is stories. Through telling the story of the Sea of Flames the author is trying to prove to readers that even non-living things have stories. Throughout the book this theme is also reinforced throughout the story. The author tells Werner's story, Marie-Lure's story, Jutta's and many others.

[charlottepetryy]

The author was trying to show that the Sea of Flames had a backstory and people were very interested by it in the past. I agree the author made it its own character and had its own backstory too.