Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mortal Engines, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Class
Sacrifice
Dangers of Technology
The Importance of History
Prejudice and First Impressions
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
At an inn called the Gasbag and Gondola, Miss Fang runs into an old friend, a handsome young African man named Captain Khora who also speaks Airsperanto. Tom thinks he overhears Miss Fang mention something about MEDUSA to Khora.
The introduction of Captain Khora suggests that perhaps Miss Fang isn’t quite as much of an outsider as she seems and that there are other aviators like her.
Themes
Khora is part of the Anti-Traction League and is headed toward Shan Guo. Tom is surprised at how kind Khora is for a member of the League. They have dinner with some other pilots, and Khora reveals to Tom that the Jenny Haniver is made of junk because Miss Fang and her family lived in a town that got eaten and were enslaved. Miss Fang’s parents died, but she scavenged parts for an airship and managed to escape.
Tom believes that the people in the Anti-Traction League are evil because that is what he learned in London. Seeing Khora in person, Tom has to reckon with the fact that Khora doesn’t match Tom’s stereotype of an Anti-Tractionist. Miss Fang’s traumatic backstory reveals that, like Hester, she is resourceful and willing to do whatever it takes to survive.
Themes
A loudspeaker announces that a ship has just arrived from London, and Tom worries they’re after him and Hester. All of a sudden, the power goes out across the whole town. Outside, people in the streets are screaming. A metallic voice shouts “Hester Shaw!” Into the doorway steps a Stalker. He’s seven feet tall and has lot of tubes that go into his chest. Stalkers have human brains but mostly metallic bodies, with some pale flesh. Tom is shocked because he thought Stalkers disappeared centuries ago. The Stalker is Shrike.
While previous passages hinted at Shrike’s robotic appearance, this is the first time in the book that he is fully described. Shrike’s pale flesh recalls a zombie, and in fact, he is a sort of living dead creature, with a single-minded focus that also recalls zombies.
Themes
Hester says she knows Shrike, so she steps forward to talk to him. She tries to convince Shrike not to hurt anyone, but he says Crome has commanded him to kill her. While Hester distracts Shrike, Miss Fang throws a razor-sharp Battle Frisbee at Shrike’s neck. It hits his throat and sticks there but doesn’t stop him. Tom and Hester run, while the airship pilots try to hold back Shrike.
Hester seems surprisingly eager to greet the dangerous Shrike. This suggests that perhaps she and Shrike have a shared history. Shrike’s indifference to an attack that would kill a normal human suggests that Shrike himself is no longer quite human.
Themes
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When Tom and Hester make it to the Jenny Haniver, they find that Shrike has already sabotaged it. Hester spots a hot-air balloon of sightseers just landing, and once they get off, Hester hijacks it, telling Tom to jump in. He does, and they throw everything overboard to make the balloon go up as fast as possible.
The hot-air balloon helps further establish the steampunk setting of the book, juxtaposing futuristic technology (the cyborg Shrike) with more archaic technology (the hot-air balloon). It also establishes Tom and Hester as underdogs, competing against Shrike’s more fearsome airship.
Themes
