Personal Response
In these chapters, Charlotte surprised me in soooo many ways. In the beginning, she acted really foolishly and told Captain Jaggery about the round robin, without thinking about the real consequences. In this way, she was very selfish because it seemed like she was only thinking about what would happen to HER if she didn't tell Captain Jaggery about the round robin, but she wasn't thinking about what it would cost the crew members if she sold them out to their worst enemy. All her life, Charlotte was grown to the fact that she should be loyal to the people of higher society, or gentlemen, and that choice of becoming Captain Jaggery's "eyes and ears" resulted in the death of Cranick, and the horrifying whipping of Zachariah. But Charlotte does change, not just a little, but a LOT. Once she recognizes the true evilness if Captain Jaggery, it leads her to figure out that maybe she should make her decisions on her own, and not based on what she was taught to do. She left everything her mom, dad, and sorority teachers had taught her behind and went out of the way to help the crew and become part of their family. Charlotte became a more manlike figure, but she still kept some her qualities, such as her stubbornness and childishness. Even though it might seem that she became smarter after showing how much she wanted to prove herself to the crew, she still does some things that weren't so smart, such as yelling at Captain Jaggery and calling him a coward and fraud. By standing up to him, she was challenging his authority, much like she did when she whipped the Captain across the face to stop them from punishing Zachariah. But the difference between that and this were that she accidentally whipped Jaggery, while on deck, she purposefully called him names.
Charlotte might have been a very lady-like 13 year old girl in the beginning of Chapter 9, but as Chapter 15 comes to end, she proves everyone (the crew members, Captain Jaggery, and her dad) wrong by showing them that she is capable of much more than just curtsying and being led by someone her whole life.
Evaluate and Connect
Charlotte tries to become close to Captain Jaggery because since she was a little girl, she was always dependent on someone else and she felt that on the ship, Captain Jaggery was the only one who was close enough to being a gentleman to give her guidance. But, after she unintentionally whipped him, Charlotte believed that "no matter how distasteful, [she] must beg the captain's forgiveness"(pg 103) She was hoping that Captain Jaggery would forgive her and was trying to apologize by "being as ready as [she] could ever hope to be"(pg 103) and "to admit her fault and make amends"(pg 103).Charlotte's decision to join the crew was a good one because the only way to gain the favor of the crew was by proving how sorry she was and that she wasn't just the pretty little lady who was dependent on someone else. When she climbs the royal yard and shows that she is stronger than she looks, she is greeted by a loud eruption of cheers from the sailors, but an angry Captain Jaggery. The crew accepts her happily because they saw her "desire to become a crew member not only as atonement, but also as a stinging rebuff to Captain Jaggery"(pg 128). After becoming a sailor, Charlotte notices that her once smooth hands had become rough like leather and her attire had changed from a pretty dress to sailor's clothing, trousers and a shirt.
This picture symbolizes the danger of the storm. Just like the monster can destroy/eat anything that comes in its way, a storm can also terrorize its victims by scaring them by the thought of drowning.
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