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Chapter 1
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Artemis Fowl, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Good vs. Evil
Nature vs. Technology
Greed
The Meaning of Family
Summary
Analysis
The goal behind Artemis’s current scheme is to acquire gold. Artemis spent a lot of time searching online and found evidence that fairies, also known as “the People,” seem to exist in the shadows around the world. He found several references to a Book that each fairy carries, which is written in the fairy language of Gnommish and includes their history as well as rules for living.
Artemis’s desire for gold continues to make him look like a supervillain. It suggests that he is motivated by mundane, material things like gold and doesn’t care about the world of fairies or the harm he could cause by interfering. Later parts of the book, however, challenge this view of Artemis as a simple villain.
Active
Themes
When Artemis and Butler get back to Fowl Manor, Juliet, Butler’s younger sister, is sitting on the stairs looking troubled. She says that Angeline Fowl (Artemis’s mother) has been bedridden ever since Artemis Fowl Senior (Artemis’s father) disappeared. Artemis goes to see his mother and lies about his recent whereabouts, saying that he’s been away on a school skiing trip. Mrs. Fowl is delirious and doesn’t even recognize Artemis. She is paranoid that something is coming to get her.
This passage provides perhaps the first humanizing detail about Artemis: that one of the reasons why he’s become a child prodigy crime genius is that both of his parents are absent, so he’s had to fend for himself. Angeline’s inability to recognize her own son hints at Artemis’s struggle to figure out his own identity, and it reinforces the novel’s portrayal of him as a kid desperately seeking parental approval.
Active
Themes
Artemis runs computer programs to try to crack the language of the Book. After a lot of frustration, he finally realizes that the language bears some resemblance to hieroglyphics. After much trial and error, he finally manages to translate the table of contents. He thinks back about how Artemis Senior first jeopardized the family fortune by getting involved in shady dealings after the break-up of the USSR. While his family is far from poor now, Artemis believes that he can use the Book to acquire gold and restore his family to its former ultrawealthy status.
