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
As Lina heads home alone, she hopes that Doon isn’t right that the Instructions aren’t important, even though she knows she got a little carried away. Feeling confused, she heads for the greenhouses to talk to Clary. Clary agrees to keep Lina’s secret and Lina tells her everything about the Instructions, the room in the Pipeworks, and Mayor Cole’s corruption. Clary shakes her head. She says that there’s darkness all throughout Ember, including inside people. In people it’s like a hungry creature that wants and wants, and it gets hungrier the more it gets. Lina knows this is true as she remembers the hunger she felt for the colored pencils. She feels sad for the mayor and how he must be so hungry for more.
Clary makes the case here that it’s a normal and expected part of being human to want things and, at times, experience greed—what matters, however, is how someone chooses to deal with that greed by either giving in (like the mayor) or standing up for what’s right (like Lina). That Clary can say this at all suggests that she’s not entirely sold on the Builders’ writings that cast Ember as almost a utopia, which suggests that she’s more likely than others to take the Instructions seriously.
Themes
Clary says she’d like to see the Instructions and agrees to come home with Lina. In Lina’s room, Clary notices that the bean seed sprouted. Lina is surprised; she hadn’t noticed. She’s thrilled. Clary pores over the Instructions and validates what Lina already worked out, but Lina realizes that Clary doesn’t know any more about it than she does. Lina sighs that it’s hopeless, but Clary says that’s not true. She suggests that the word “Egres” in the title is just missing it’s final letter that will make it “Egress.” The Instructions, she says, are for the way out.
When the sprouting bean coincides with figuring out what the Instructions are for, the bean comes to symbolize Lina’s growing knowledge. This development will allow her, like the sprout, to move toward the light, both figuratively as she gathers more information and literally as she works toward leaving Ember.
Themes
After Clary leaves, Lina races across Ember to Doon’s apartment and tells him about Clary’s theory. They return to Lina’s apartment and puzzle over the directions. The first one is still unintelligible, but they reason that the second direction must say to find a stone marked with an E by the river’s edge. They think that the next direction says to find a ledge down by the riverbank, and that the fourth instruction talks about a door and a key that must be under the Pipeworks. They wonder where it goes. Doon pauses and suggests it’d be great if they find the way out and then announce it at the Singing in two days. Doon has to run home before lights out, but he agrees to look for the E at work.
The suggestion to solve the mystery and announce it at the Singing shows again that for all Doon’s pragmatism and understanding that something must be done, he still experiences greed and desire like everyone else. Unlike Mayor Cole and Looper, however, Doon desires recognition, not material goods, which puts him in a somewhat more honorable position than others who also desire things.
Themes
Doon struggles to sleep. The noise of him tossing and turning wakes Doon’s father, who asks if Doon is worrying. Doon wants to tell his father everything, knowing that his father would be thrilled to help them and expose Mayor Cole. However, Doon wants to make his father proud when the guards announce that Doon uncovered the mayor’s crimes, so he says that he’s fine. After Doon’s father goes back to bed, Doon retraces the Pipeworks’ paths in his mind. Just as he’s about to fall asleep, he gets to the rocks by the river that look like they have writing on them.
Though it doesn’t seem like much now, Doon’s decision to not loop in his father has major consequences later, which shows that even desiring non-material things have the potential to harm others or make things difficult. Figuring out where the E on the rock is, however, allows Doon to use his critical thinking skills to piece together information he already has.
Themes
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