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
At 3:20 p.m., Doon grabs his pack and heads for the Pipeworks. He’s worried about Lina, but knows he has to run. When he sees a poster, Doon knows he’s only making Doon’s father worry. He falters, but thinks that he’s committed now. Quickly, Doon scribbles a message to his father and leaves it pinned to a kiosk. In the distance, he can hear the songs of the Singing and sings along. The lights go out and Doon stops to wait. He hears people at the Singing continue the song despite the darkness, and then he hears the screams after the song ends. Though Doon is afraid, he remembers he has a candle and lights it. It’s enough to see his way to the Pipeworks entrance.
For Doon, the candle acts as a reminder that he has more knowledge of how the world works than he’s ever had in his life—unlike anyone before him in Ember, he has the power of a moveable light. Like Lina, as he joins in on the songs, it shows that he also feels like a valued and important part of Ember, despite the city’s faults and the fact that Doon is an enemy according to Mayor Cole. Leaving a note for his father allows Doon to maturely include others in his plan despite executing it on his own.
Themes
Doon blows out his candle and sits down to wait. The lights come back on and Doon wonders if he should still go down the river without Lina. He paces a little and tries to decide if he could lift the boat without help, or get Lina out of the Prison Room without getting caught. Suddenly, Lina appears and dashes to him. Poppy is in her arms, and Doon is too relieved to care that she’s going to make the journey harder. They enter the Pipeworks and Doon replaces the borrowed key before they head down to the path by the river. At the ladder, Lina ties Poppy into a makeshift sling to climb down. Lina sets Poppy down in the back of the first room while she and Doon deal with the boat.
Through his friendship with Lina, Doon has learned to set aside his individualistic thoughts about being smarter than everyone else—now, he understands that he’s part of a community and needs help to do things, hence why he struggles so much as he considers whether he could handle a boat singlehandedly. Meanwhile, it’s possible to read bringing Poppy as either selfish or selfless. Either Lina is saving Poppy from the struggle of traveling with strangers, or she’s potentially dooming her own journey out of Ember.
Themes
They’re pretty sure the pointed end is the front, and they discover that the boxes of candles and matches fit in the back. Lina and Doon decide to leave the paddles in the bottom. They’re surprised to discover that the boat is light and easy to lift, and they realize that the ropes are to tie the boat while it sits in the river. Doon finds rods by the water’s edge and as Poppy wails, Doon and Lina tie the boat. Lina tries to comfort Poppy in an excited voice. Doon and Lina lower the boat into the water. They climb in one at a time and untie it.
At this point, Lina and Doon aren’t working off of the Instructions. Instead, they’re using the information they find around them and thinking logically to figure out how to get the boat from point A to point B, safely and successfully. Being able to do this is indicative of the major leaps in maturity they’ve made over the course of the novel—and these leaps will help them overcome the Builders’ censorship.
Themes
