The City of Ember

by

Jeanne DuPrau

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Selfishness, Greed, and Corruption Theme Analysis

Themes and Colors
Coming of Age Theme Icon
Selfishness, Greed, and Corruption Theme Icon
Family and Community Theme Icon
Censorship Theme Icon
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.
Selfishness, Greed, and Corruption Theme Icon

Soon after entering the adult working world, both Lina and Doon—but Doon in particular—make shocking discoveries that point to the inarguable fact that Ember isn’t the idyllic, if somewhat troubled, place they’ve been told it is. Rather, Ember is plagued by more than just the darkness of power outages: food, medicine, and supply shortages mean that everyone lives in a somewhat desperate state, while at all levels of Ember’s government and administration, power, secrecy, and blind trust on the part of the general populace allows corruption to run rampant. The novel is careful to illustrate that it’s possible for anyone to experience greed, no matter how morally good they might appear. It also suggests that it’s extremely important to recognize societal structures that enable simple greed to transform into full-on corruption—and to not give in and conform to systems that allow people to corruptly prioritize their own short-term wellbeing over the long-term health of the community.

Due to shortages of all manner of things in Ember, from shoes and coats to canned goods, everyone in the city hoards whatever they can. Specifically, the reader gets a close look at Doon’s father’s shop, which sells everything from shoe heels to potentially useful bits of wood and metal, and Lina’s Granny’s yarn shop, which sells “yarn” made from used clothing and linens that have been unraveled and unwoven. These businesses create the sense that Ember is experiencing a supply crisis. This becomes especially apparent when Lina hears Granny’s stories about having canned pineapple once as a child, a food that has since run out and that Lina has never had. Though pineapple is a delicacy and not necessary to survival, there are other clear indicators that the storerooms are low on all manner of necessary things, from coats and children’s shoes to necessary medicines. In turn, this leads to exorbitant prices for even staple foods and items in shops. On the whole, the novel’s descriptions of what people have in their homes and shops—overwhelmingly, piles of junk or scrap material that may someday be useful or possible to sell—suggests that everyone in Ember is desperate on some level for necessary things, as well as long-disappeared luxury items that might make life easier or more comfortable.

The state of living with major shortages is, for most, simply the status quo; many in Ember simply do the best with what they have. However, for those with money, connections, or power, doing without isn’t necessary. Ember, the novel suggests, is a city ripe for corruption, which exists at all levels of society. Ember’s mayor, Mayor Cole, is perhaps the least surprising individual to engage in corrupt activity. Lina and Doon discover that in the Pipeworks, there’s a hidden room where the mayor can eat himself into a stupor on all manner of delicacies. At the same time as he does this, Mayor Cole tells his citizens that he’s working on the problem of shortages, something that Doon and Doon’s father recognize is a lie. Instead, Doon understands that the mayor’s greed is fueled by the belief that if things are inevitably going to get worse, it’s best to make the most of life while he can. Far more surprising and hurtful for Lina is discovering that her childhood best friend, Lizzie, is also aligning herself with corrupt individuals. As a storeroom clerk, Lizzie doesn’t have much power herself—but when she begins dating the young storeroom manager, he gives her access to goods like canned asparagus and peaches, which she then hides from her friends like Lina. Like Mayor Cole, Lizzie believes that if the situation in Ember is really as bad as it seems, it’s only natural to want to make the best of things before life in Ember grinds to a halt when the lights in Ember inevitably go off for good. Through Mayor Cole and Lizzie, the novel makes it clear that it’s surprisingly easy for all different types of individuals to be selfish and greedy.

Even more disturbing for Lina than Lizzie’s flirtations with corruption, however, are Lina and Doon’s own instances of greed and selfishness. Lina feels a wild sense of hunger and desire when she discovers that a shop still has a few colored pencils, exorbitantly priced at $5 each. Though she purchases two, the thrill is dampened when in the power outage immediately following her purchase, she loses her toddler sister Poppy in the pitch black street. This shows Lina that her desire to better herself, rather than purchase Granny or Poppy a new coat, has potential dire consequences if she chooses to indulge it. Similarly, Lina and Doon both crave glory and recognition for their sleuthing efforts, and so they choose not to loop others into their plan to escape Ember in the hopes that they’ll be able to make a grand speech at the yearly Singing celebration, where everyone gathers to sing songs about the city. This selfish plan ultimately means that Lina and Doon end up escaping alone and leaving a note, which has no guarantee of being found, or for that matter, followed, by whoever finds it. With this, the novel makes it clear that greed, selfishness, and a desire for glory may all be part of what it means to be human, but more important than whether or not a person experiences these negative emotions is what they choose to do with them. It’s possible, the novel suggests, to simultaneously recognize one’s selfish tendencies and perform great acts of kindness and community service, as Lina and Doon do in The City of Ember and go on to do in future installments of the series.

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Selfishness, Greed, and Corruption ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Selfishness, Greed, and Corruption appears in each chapter of The City of Ember. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Selfishness, Greed, and Corruption Quotes in The City of Ember

Below you will find the important quotes in The City of Ember related to the theme of Selfishness, Greed, and Corruption.
Chapter 2 Quotes

She bent over The Book of the City of Ember and read a few sentences: “The citizens of Ember may not have luxuries, but the foresight of the Builders, who filled the storerooms at the beginning of time, has ensured that they will always have enough, and enough is all that a person of wisdom needs.”

Related Characters: Lina Mayfleet, The Builders, The Seventh Mayor
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:

“Curiosity leads to trouble.”

Related Characters: Redge Stabmark (speaker), Lina Mayfleet
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

“Can you explain to me about the generator?” he asked. “Can you tell me how it works?”

The old man just sighed. “All I know is, the river makes it go.”

“But how?”

The man shrugged. “Who knows? Our job is just to keep it from breaking down.”

Related Characters: Doon Harrow (speaker), The Builders, The Seventh Mayor
Related Symbols: The River
Page Number: 48
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

Just recently, an official job called trash sifter had been created. Every day a team of people methodically sorted through the trash heaps in search of anything that might at all be useful. They’d come back with broken chair legs that could be used for repairing window frames [...] Lina hadn’t thought about it before, but now she wondered about the trash sifters. Were they there because Ember really was running out of everything?

Related Characters: Lina Mayfleet
Page Number: 58
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Later, in her bedroom, with Poppy asleep, she took the two colored pencils from her pocket. They were not quite as beautiful as they had been. When she held them, she remembered the powerful wanting she had felt in that dusty store, and the feeling of it was mixed up with fear and shame and darkness.

Related Characters: Lina Mayfleet, Looper Windley, Poppy Mayfleet
Related Symbols: Colored Pencils
Page Number: 82-83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

Lina rather liked having Mrs. Murdo around—it was a bit like having a mother there. [...] When Mrs. Murdo was there, shoes got picked up and put away, spills were wiped off the furniture, and Poppy always had on clean clothes. Lina could relax when Mrs. Murdo was around. She knew things were taken care of.

Related Characters: Lina Mayfleet, Mrs. Murdo, Granny, Poppy Mayfleet
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:

“Is it true about the light bulbs?”

“Is what true?”

“That there aren’t very many left?”

Lizzie shrugged. “I don’t know. They hardly ever let us go down into the storerooms. All we see are the reports the carriers turn in— [...]

“But when you see the report for the light bulb rooms, what does it say?”

“I never get to see that one,” said Lizzie. “That one, and a few other ones like the vitamin report, only a few people can see.”

Related Characters: Lina Mayfleet (speaker), Lizzie Bisco (speaker)
Page Number: 103
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

And if the cans hadn’t come from a market, where had they come from? There was only one answer: they had come from the storerooms. Somehow, Lizzie had gotten them because she worked in the storeroom office. Had she paid for them? How much? Or had she taken them without paying?

Related Characters: Lina Mayfleet, Mayor Cole, Looper Windley, Lizzie Bisco
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:

“And Lizzie—he isn’t just stealing things for you. He has a store! He steals things and sells them for huge prices!”

“He does not,” said Lizzie, but she looked worried.

“He does. I know because I bought something from him just a few weeks ago. He has a whole box of colored pencils.”

Related Characters: Lina Mayfleet (speaker), Lizzie Bisco (speaker), Looper Windley
Related Symbols: Colored Pencils
Page Number: 151
Explanation and Analysis:

“Looper says it’s all going to be gone soon anyway, why not live as well as we can right now?”

“But Lizzie, why should you get all that? Why you and not other people?”

“Because we found it. Because we can get at it.”

“I don’t think it’s fair,” said Lina.

Lizzie spoke as if she were talking to a not-very-bright child. “You can have some, too. That’s what I’m telling you.”

Related Characters: Lina Mayfleet (speaker), Lizzie Bisco (speaker), Looper Windley
Page Number: 153
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

That’s the solution he keeps telling us about. It’s a solution for him, not the rest of us. He gets everything he needs, and we get the leftovers! He doesn’t care about the city. All he cares about is his fat stomach!”

Related Characters: Doon Harrow (speaker), Lina Mayfleet, Mayor Cole
Page Number: 158-59
Explanation and Analysis:

“If this were an ordinary situation, the mayor would be the one to tell.”

“But the mayor is the one committing the crime,” said Doon.

“So then we should tell the guards, I guess,” said Lina. “They’re next in authority next to the mayor. Though I don’t like them much, [...] Especially the chief guard.”

Related Characters: Lina Mayfleet (speaker), Doon Harrow (speaker), Mayor Cole, Redge Stabmark
Page Number: 161
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

“There is so much darkness in Ember, Lina. It’s not just outside, it’s inside us, too. Everyone has some darkness inside. It’s like a hungry creature. It wants and wants and wants with a terrible power. And the more you give it, the bigger and hungrier it gets.”

Related Characters: Clary Laine (speaker), Lina Mayfleet, Mayor Cole
Related Symbols: Colored Pencils
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

What was he thinking? If he still had light bulbs when everyone else in Ember had run out, would he enjoy sitting in his lit room while the rest of the city drowned in darkness? And when the power finally ran out for good, all his light bulbs would be useless. Possessions couldn’t save him—how could he have forgotten that?

Related Characters: Lina Mayfleet (speaker), Mayor Cole
Page Number: 178-79
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 20 Quotes

Disaster seems very close. Everything will be all right, they tell us, but only a few people believe them. Why, if it’s going to be all right, do we see it getting worse every day?

And of course this plan is proof that they think the world is doomed.

Related Characters: The Woman (speaker), Lina Mayfleet, Doon Harrow, The Builders
Page Number: 259
Explanation and Analysis: