Told in the first person some time after Charlotte’s voyage, the story is presented much like the travel narratives popular during the nineteenth century. Early in the novel, Charlotte explains that she is telling the truth as she lived it, suggesting an air of authenticity that adds to the reader’s enjoyment of the melodrama. Charlotte tells her tale using a hyperliterary style common to the writing of that time period. In doing so, she joins the well-established tradition of the woman’s travel narrative, whose roots go back to Sarah Kemble Knight’s Private Journal of a Journey from Boston to New York (1704-1705) and in many aspects to Mary Rowlandson’s Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration (1682), which details her capture by American Indians during King Philip’s War.

“Woman-in-peril,” or perhaps “virtue-in-danger,” is an assertive theme in many historical accounts of travel. Avi builds on this motif as Charlotte finds herself in an all-male society. The “confession” does not belabor any potential sexual threat; however, an underlying element of propriety is what fuels much of the book’s appeal. From the outset, Charlotte finds herself forced by circumstances away from propriety. When she discovers that the traveling companions that her father arranged for her will not be present for the voyage, she exclaims that the situation would not be proper. Charlotte discovers, however, that there is considerably more wrong on the ship than simply traveling with sailors.

“Impropriety” is the watchword as the crew mutinies against Jaggery, who is outwardly smooth but inwardly vicious. It is Charlotte’s abeyance to propriety that causes much of the conflict. She is unable to pull away from the socially correct—that is, the way things ought to be—that results in savage authority and tragedy. Charlotte at first refuses to accept the fact that things may not be as they seem. When she alerts Jaggery to the planned mutiny, she sets into motion a series of events that show her the captain’s treachery. It has become too late for her to rectify the situation, to restore propriety, and she becomes an outcast. She no longer can approach Jaggery, and she is no longer trusted by the crew.

At that point in the novel, the heroine herself takes a turn from propriety. In an attempt to show her solidarity with the crew, she becomes one of them—but only after a great struggle to be accepted. Her defiance against the captain eases her into the crew’s acceptance, but it is her willingness literally to learn the ropes and her increasing antagonism toward the captain’s authority that eventually win her the crew’s uneasy approval. Charlotte deliberately rejects a proper woman’s proper place in favor of danger and revenge. She dons sailors’ clothing and, at the height of a hurricane while she is dangling by ropes, she shears her hair short so that she can see to cut the billowing sails.

Charlotte’s move away from all that is acceptable and proper is fully realized once she has safely arrived in America, although her parents do not accept or allow this change. To please her parents, she pretends to acquiesce to their wishes. The night before the Seahawk is set to leave Providence, however, she is drawn to the gangplank and smuggled aboard. While the novel explores gender roles, it more succinctly inspects the power of authority and propriety. Charlotte’s move away from expected behavior offers an additional dimension to the traditional genre of the woman’s travel narrative. It is this element of self-reliance that makes the story significant to young adult readers.

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle also functions as a classic quest story. Charlotte delineates the change that she undergoes as she rejects appearance for reality. Her metamorphosis from a sheltered schoolgirl to an independent young woman is a winning exploration of self-realization.