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
A few weeks later, Lina comes home from work to find Granny pulling stuffing out of the couch. Confused, Granny says she’s looking for something important that’s lost, but she can’t remember what that important thing is. Lina gently suggests they put the couch back together and asks where Poppy is. Granny is confused, but remembers that Poppy is in the shop. Lina is horrified and runs downstairs. Poppy sits, tangled in yarn, and cries when she sees Lina. Lina untangles Poppy and comforts her, though she’s upset enough to tremble—forgetting about Poppy is dangerous. Granny has been forgetful before, but this is the first time she’s forgotten Poppy altogether.
This is a major turning point for Lina, as she must now accept that Granny cannot truly care for her and Poppy. This puts Lina in the situation of assuming an even more adult role than she was a few days ago, and Granny’s inability to remember what she’s even looking for suggests that Lina will also have to take on the work of caring for her ailing grandmother.
Themes
Back upstairs, Granny sadly tells Lina that what she was looking for wasn’t in the couch. Granny says that it was lost a long time ago, according to her father. Lina feels frustrated and impatient; Granny seems increasingly to only remember or care about things from long ago. Granny says that her grandfather, the seventh mayor, was talking about it before he died, but nobody knows what exactly he was talking about. Lina figures it was something unremarkable like a sock. The next morning, Lina stops in at the apartment of her neighbor, Mrs. Murdo. Mrs. Murdo is brisk but kind, and she has nothing to do since she had to close her paper and pencil shop. Lina tells her about Granny’s forgetfulness and asks her to check on Granny during the day. Mrs. Murdo agrees.
When Lina approaches Mrs. Murdo for help, it indicates that Lina has learned well to lean into Ember’s spirit of community and togetherness, something that manifests here as being willing and able to ask for help when she knows she needs it. This is also a very mature thing to do, as it shows that Lina is aware that she cannot properly look after Granny and Poppy while also holding down a job and being a kid. Taking this mature step, in this sense, also allows Lina to hold onto her childhood a bit longer, as it helps her share her adult responsibilities with someone else.
Themes
Later, Lina carries a message from the owner of the vegetable market to Clary. Lina is happy to see Clary and be in the greenhouses, but it’s sad too since her father worked there. There’s nothing out by the greenhouses except the trash heaps. It used to be that no one went out there, but now guards watch the area and trash sifters sort through the rubble for anything that might be useful. Lina wonders if the job of trash sifter was created because Ember is really running out of everything. Beyond the trash heaps is only the Unknown Regions, where it’s entirely dark.
When Lina wonders about the reasoning behind the trash sifters’ jobs, it indicates that she’s continuing to mull over Doon’s assertion that not all is well—and in addition, she’s starting to make her own connections and observations about what’s going on in her city. This habit will help her understand that her community spirit is valuable, but it’s ultimately useless if she doesn’t use it to help everyone in her community face their impending doom.
Themes
Lina enters the first greenhouse. She looks up, almost expecting to see her father tinkering with the sprinklers. Lina’s heart fills with love and warmth—she spent a lot of time here as a child and since her parents’ deaths, working in the gardens has helped Lina forget her grief. Clary is working on a bed of carrots but smiles when she sees Lina. Lina relays the message asking for extra crates of cabbages and potatoes, but Clary says she can’t. She leads Lina to a bed of potatoes. The plants’ leaves are black, and Clary explains that the potatoes are runny and stinky. Most of the potatoes are infected with a new disease. Lina is worried; potatoes are an important staple food.
The existence of the greenhouses indicates that Ember’s residents aren’t entirely cut off from the natural world, but they interact with it in a decidedly human-controlled way. The potatoes’ disease, however, especially combined with Clary’s concern, makes it clear that there are major limitations to being so cut off. In this case, because the Builders’ censorship is so successful, Clary doesn’t know what’s happening or how to stop it.
Themes
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Lina and Clary chat for a while, and then Lina gets up to go. Just outside of the greenhouse, however, they hear sobbing and wailing getting closer. Clary sends Lina away and refuses to explain anything, so Lina ducks behind a toolshed and watches a man stumble and fall when he trips over a hose. Lina recognizes the man as Sadge Merrall, a Supply Depot clerk. Clary helps Sadge up and leads him toward the greenhouse, but she struggles to open the door. Lina opens it for them. Sadge talks about knowing that it’d be dark, and how walking into the dark is like walking into a wall. He says he fell and realized that there could be anything out there, from deep pits to huge rats. He got so scared he ran all the way back to Ember.
When Clary sends Lina away, it shows that at least in her eyes, Lina is a child who should be looked after and not exposed to potentially disturbing experiences like this. In this way, Clary shows herself to be an important mentor and trusted adult in Lina’s life. The fact that Sadge went out in to the Unknown Regions is another clear indicator that things are dire in Ember, so people are becoming increasingly curious—and desperate to find solutions.
Themes
Lina asks what Sadge was looking for. Sadge says he was looking for something to help them, like stairs to somewhere else or more supplies. He found nothing and says it’s impossible to be successful without a light. Sadge excuses himself and leaves. Lina is curious, but not afraid. Several people have tried to go into the Unknown Regions, and Lina herself wonders if there’s a tunnel out there that leads to the city in her dreams. She thinks it’d just take the courage to keep walking away from Ember, but that’s a tall order given that there’s no such thing as a moveable light. Many people have tried to light sticks on fire with their stoves, but the sticks don’t last long. Lina and Clary watch as guards at the trash heaps scold and arrest Sadge for no reason. Clary says the guards need something to do.
While it may seem odd to the reader, the fact that moveable lights don’t exist in Ember was likely a very smart move on the part of the Builders—a moveable light would allow people the tools to be more curious about the world beyond Ember, which they probably cannot be if they’re to remain in the city until the appointed time. Keeping this information, then, is a way for the Builders to protect Emberites—and possibly, all of humanity in the process. That the guards arrest Sadge for no reason implies that not everything in Ember’s community is working as it should; people are becoming power hungry.
Themes
Clary says that Sadge is the fourth one this year to try to penetrate the Unknown Regions. She tells Lina that she’s pretty sure there’s nothing out there, but she isn’t sure if Ember is really the only light in the world. Clary pulls a bean seed out of her pocket. Rhetorically, she asks how the seed knows how to turn into a bean plant. She says that it has life in it, but nobody knows what life is or where it comes from. Lamps come alive because electricity and cords connect them to the generator—which Clary knows nothing about—but humans and plants have whatever makes them alive inside of them.
The acknowledgement that Sadge is the fourth to attempt leaving Ember drives home again that people—and not just Doon and Sadge—are desperate for more information. When Clary talks about the bean, she acknowledges that there are lots of things they don’t know. Identifying what she doesn’t know, however, means that Clary is curious about these things and is in a good position mentally to figure them out.
Themes
Clary says that there’s something at work they don’t understand. They know that the Builders made the City, but where did the Builders come from—and who made the people of Ember? Clary doesn’t know the answers to these questions, but moves as though to go back to work. Lina tells Clary about the sparkling, bright city in her mind and says she’s certain it’s real. She doesn’t know where it is, but she wonders if there’s a door somewhere that leads to it. Clary isn’t sure about this, but she plants the seed in a pot and gives it to Lina. She says that somehow the seed is a clue, since it has life inside. Lina wants to hug Clary in thanks, but doesn’t want to embarrass her.
The seed in general is a symbol for Lina’s progression from being literally and figuratively in the dark about what’s going on in her city, to understanding everything about it. At this point, Lina is like the seemingly lifeless seed: she’s full of potential to know more, but she hasn’t had enough information (water or sunlight) to figure it out (and sprout) yet. That Clary is asking these questions in the first place shows that she doesn’t believe The Book of the City of Ember is the final word; she, like Doon, is thinking critically.
Themes
