Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The City of Ember, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Selfishness, Greed, and Corruption
Family and Community
Censorship
Summary
Analysis
Lina spends her night tossing and turning and experiences scary dreams. When she tries to wake Granny in the morning, Granny is breathing hoarsely and says she’s not feeling well. Her forehead is hot and her hands are cold, so Lina asks Mrs. Murdo to come, tells Captain Fleery she won’t be at work, and runs for Dr. Tower. Dr. Tower agrees to come, but warns Lina upfront that she’s low on medicine. She examines Granny and tells Lina to make soup and mop Granny’s brow with cool cloths. Lina spends all day at home, trying not to remember her father’s labored breathing or Dr. Tower coming out of her mother’s bedroom with newborn Poppy and bad news. Granny wakes up at one point and asks if they found it. Lina tells her they did, and Granny falls asleep, relieved.
For Lina, Granny’s illness is part of a long history of illness and death in her family, which makes this far more traumatic. As Granny declines, Lina also has to relive her parents’ deaths because it’s impossible, in this situation, to forget or ignore what happened to them. This makes it clear that Lina is carrying around a lot of trauma and anxiety when it comes to family. That family will be around for her isn’t something Lina can trust, which may explain some of why she is such a mature and put-together kid: she’s had no choice but to be that way.
Themes
Lina stays home the next day too. Poppy is thrilled to have Lina home, and after dinner Lina gets out can labels and her colored pencils. She gives one label and the green pencil to Poppy and keeps the blue one for herself. Lina draws buildings, streetlamps, and greenhouses. They’re all white, the color of the paper. She colors the sky blue and thinks of how strange it would be to have a blue sky.
In this situation, the colored pencils symbolize what’s possible. Just as Lina thought having more colored pencils were impossible, when she colors the sky blue, it foreshadows that at some point, Lina will discover that the sky can actually be that color.
Themes
In the middle of the night, Lina wakes up when she hears Granny call for help. Lina stumbles through the dark to Granny’s room and falls onto the bed. Granny says she had a dream about her baby as Lina checks Granny’s pulse. It’s fluttery. Lina offers to get Granny water, but Granny asks Lina to stay for a while. They settle in and Lina concentrates on Granny’s breathing and soothes her when she mumbles. After a while, Granny sends Lina back to bed. Lina hugs Granny and wishes she could see Granny’s face in the dark. She feels lonely as she stumbles back to bed. When the lights come on a few hours later, Lina finds that Granny is dead.
Lina’s desire to see Granny’s face shows one of the most heartbreaking consequences of living in Ember: Lina doesn’t have control over the lights in her home, as the city’s electricity goes out for the night. Because of this, Lina doesn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye to her beloved grandmother face to face. Though Lina doesn’t mention this again, this likely impresses upon her the necessity of finding a solution that will save others from suffering like this when loved ones die.
Themes
