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
Watching from inside the Engineerium in London, Katherine and Pod realize that the Engineers have built MEDUSA inside St. Paul. But as they’re watching, another Engineer notices that the Guild-mark that Katherine painted on her forehead is beginning to fade and drip. She and Pod run. They hear an alarm bell going off.
Katherine and Pod have been lucky so far to avoid detection, but this passage shows just how quickly that luck can turn around. The alarm bell suggests that soon the whole building will be looking for them.
Themes
Katherine and Pod manage to get out of the Engineerium by losing their pursuers, then pretending Katherine has an injury and needs to go to an infirmary. But Beefeater guards come looking for them. Just then, Katherine notices Chudleigh Pomeroy and goes to him, asking for help. Pomeroy seems hesitant at first, but when Beefeaters come to interrogate the three of them, Pomeroy says he hasn’t seen anything. The Beefeaters move on.
Pomeroy didn’t necessarily come across as a favorable character in the first part of the novel, but his willingness to help Katherine and Pod escape the Beefeaters reveals that his character might have hidden depth.
Themes
Pomeroy takes Katherine home. She tells him to take Pod to an elevator back to the Gut, but Pomeroy warns that after everything that happened in the Engineerium, there’s probably a lockdown, meaning it would be dangerous for Pod to go back. Katherine volunteers to let Pod stay with her, suggesting her father can sort everything out when he’s back. But Pomeroy says that’s also dangerous—the best option is for Pomeroy himself to take Pod in at the museum.
By choosing to help Katherine, Pod has put himself in constant danger. Pomeroy himself shows courage by volunteering to help house the fugitive Pod. His unexpected selflessness contrasts with the unexpected selfishness of characters like Wreyland, emphasizing how first impressions don’t always reflect the full truth.
Themes
Just then, Pomeroy points over at St. Paul’s, where MEDUSA is crackling like lightning. A beam fires out at Panzerstadt-Bayreuth, and the giant city comes crashing down. Katherine expects people to be horrified, but instead, she hears cheering throughout London.
The destruction of Panzerstadt-Bayreuth, with the flash of light and with the suddenness of the destruction, resembles the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II. Perhaps the giant laser-like weapon also suggests the Death Star from Star Wars, making it clear that London is in fact the villain of the story and not the hero as Tom originally thought.
Themes
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