Hope
After her unsuspected and unofficial arrest, Alicia struggles to maintain her will to survive. She and her fellow prisoners are subjected to extreme abuse, every interaction designed to crush their morale and to dehumanize them. In order to survive, Alicia must learn to motivate herself through hope, to cling to and foster whatever instances of meaning she can find. She starts sticking her hand through a broken window when it rains, just to feel the little raindrops on her skin. Any kind of sensory experience is an opportunity for revelry to one denied so much. In the poems she has memorized and in the small pleasantries like rain and bread, Alicia finds hope to persist, despite the overwhelming oppression of her environment.
Silence
One of Alicia's main struggles while imprisoned is that she is not allowed to speak to her fellow prisoners. The isolation from human connection weighs most heavily upon her. This silence is intentional, designed to invite prisoners to lose their minds. Although there is no verbal communication between prisoners, there is not unbroken silence. The guards often insult or verbally abuse their charges so that the silence is only eclipsed by greater suffering. Rather than face these harsh words, Alicia starts to believe in only the silence, as if she cannot hear the screams and cries around her.
Dignity
Dignity is the primary possession of the prisoners which the guards cannot take from them without consent. This doesn't mean it is easy to maintain dignity in such an environment. On the contrary, the goal of the camps appears to be teach these people to regret their lives. In order to maintain their dignity, then, the prisoners turn to internal resources such as memories or tiny rebellious acts. One of them faces torture by continuing to repeat a song over and over, some significant phrase from childhood. Others hide away bits and pieces saved from meals or any small possession they can find. They are humans, despite the inhumane treatment of their captors.
