Most if not all of the stories we’ve read have dealt with the idea of fate as inevitable, particularly as it ties to caste. The class one is born into generally seems to dictate the contents and circumstances of one’s life. It seems no matter what “ups and downs” there are, (social mobility, accumulation of wealth) there isn’t really any way of altering one’s “level” during a single lifetime. So far in Sea of Poppies, characters like Zachary, Paulette, and Neel (the Raja’s son), have all experienced some kind of modification of their original status. This alteration includes most clearly, a mixing of Eastern and Western cultures, so much so that it seems none of these characters are explicitly part of one sphere/world or another. They each have an outcast quality to them, though they also are very much “involved.”
Zachary is described as rising through the ranks from a position as ship-repairman, not knowing anything about sailing, to being second-mate as well as being perceived by others around him as having a kind of inherent nobility. Paulette seems to have the background of a French aristocrat but is more at home wearing saris despite being taken in by one of the most English families (the Burnhams) in the area. Neel’s position as a Raja seems to be slipping away from him, something that seems to define much of his identity.
It’s possible that these characters are just representations of the same idea found in the other stories we’ve read: that one’s fate is inescapable and the changes one experiences are just expressions of that same fate. Either way, each of these characters seem to be slaves to the practice of Free Trade (what Burnham believes fervently in and compares to the “inherent” goodness of Christianity) despite their changing circumstances and seemingly mixed identities.
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