Adults such as Tool, Blue Eyes, and Candless reference Nailer’s inexperience and foolishness, and Nailer berates himself for being “stupid” many times throughout the novel. Does Nailer’s naivety and inexperience help or hinder him in pursuing his dreams?

The inability of people in poverty to rise above their situation is a recurring topic of discussion for Tool, Nailer, and Nita. Nita wonders why the rich don’t help others more in Orleans, and Tool tells her that any help would be wasted; those living in poverty would just consume or destroy whatever they received. Is this view true in Bacigalupi’s dystopian world?

By mid-novel, Nita has exchanged her swank life for the harder life of poverty. At the end of the novel, Nailer exchanges his life of poverty for a swank life as crew on the clipper ship Dauntless. Is it easier for Nita to live in the world of the ship breakers or for Nailer to live as a swank? Why?