Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Uglies, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Conformity vs. Individuality
Beauty, Science, and Influence
The Natural World, History, and Growing Up
Friendship and Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
Tally eats dinner alone. After a day spent cutting trees, the wood tables don’t seem as horrendous, and the brutality of the rabbit stew suits her mood. Tally hasn’t spoken to Shay or Croy since lunch, and Dr. Cable’s pendant seems to get heavier and tighter around her neck. She fears that it’s only a matter of time before everyone knows she’s a spy and she feels awful for coming between David and Shay. Tally feels like one of the orchids, choking everything else around her. David sits down with Tally, apologizes, and says he could guess why Tally didn’t wear the gloves after eating with Shay. He asks her to follow him so they can talk, and Tally, remembering her promise to Shay, agrees.
Though Tally may feel like an orchid, an oppressive and threatening presence to those around her, it’s also worth considering that there’s still a lot of diversity around her. Even if Tally is complicating Shay and David’s romantic potential, it’s likely that the diversity of the Smoke is enough to keep this hiccup from doing too much long-term damage. Tally’s feelings about the wood tables and the stew, meanwhile, show that the culture in the Smoke is beginning to agree with her.
Themes
David leads Tally to a ridge where they can look down on the Smoke. Tally notices how gracefully David moves: he’s even more graceful than pretties. They stare out over the orchids on the other side of the ridge, and David says that Tally is the first runaway to arrive alone—he usually brings them in. Tally thinks that David seems to take things more seriously than even middle pretties do. David continues that his mother used to bring people in, but now she’s too old. Remembering that old uglies become infirm, Tally asks how old David’s mother is. With a laugh, David says she’s still fit, but uglies trust people closer to their own age. Tally remembers her reaction to the Boss and marvels at how normal different faces seem now, after just a few weeks.
To readers, Tally’s concern over David’s mother’s age is likely humorous—Tally still doesn’t quite understand that middle-aged and even elderly people can be fit and able. Despite this, however, she is starting to adjust to the culture in the Smoke and the idea that people can—and should—look different from one another. This begins to show that beauty has more to do with culture than it does with biology. Tally’s clear attraction to David also demonstrates this, as Tally wouldn’t be drawn to him if her city was right about uglies being universally unattractive.
Themes
David compliments Tally for her bravery in coming to the Smoke all by herself and specifically for leaving home. He says he could never leave the Smoke knowing he’d never come back, and he admires and trusts Tally because she came just because Shay asked her to. Tally feels worse and worse. David says he was angry with Shay at first because he thought Tally was a wasted risk, being a city kid all alone, but he affectionately recalls how happy Tally looked when she ran down the hill to Shay. David encourages Tally to not listen to Croy’s suspicions, and then asks knowingly if Tally doesn’t plan to stay in the Smoke, since she just came to check on Shay.
David makes it very clear that people, including Tally, have choices about whether or not they remain in the Smoke. In this sense, David is one of the most loyal friends in the novel, as this seems like something he’s known since he was a very young child. This suggests that growing up in a natural environment like the Smoke helps people become more empathetic and understanding of others’ choices, even if they don’t seem to make much sense.
Themes
David’s words make Tally feel warm, but then she trembles—this warmth isn’t something she’s ever felt from an ugly before, since ugly faces can’t have that effect. Somehow, David seems pretty for a moment. Tally doesn’t think she deserves David’s admiration and says that Shay probably wishes she’d never talked about the Smoke. David says that Shay changes her mind a lot. Tally looks closely at David, still feeling warm. She takes note of all his faults but feels as though his face looks genuinely pretty. David says that Shay really likes him, but that she’s not serious like Tally is. Tally grabs her pendant nervously, but David acts unconcerned. He asks Tally if she’ll meet his parents.
Clearly, the love triangle forming here has a lot to do with David’s shifting emotions, which suggests that Shay is actually the one being a bit selfish by implying that Tally somehow stole David from her. The warm feeling Tally experiences when she looks at David makes it clear that she reciprocates his crush. More importantly, though, it also drives home that Tally’s beliefs about pretties, beauty, and attraction is wrong—she can, and does, feel attraction for an “ugly” person.
Themes
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