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 leaves at midnight. She finds a long-range hoverboard that Dr. Cable left for her under the dam. Tally rides as fast as she can, simultaneously nervous and happy that the board seems to not have a speed limit—she knows she has to make up for lost time. Tally realizes that this particular board is definitely not a toy: it learns her movements quickly and has metal detectors to guide her path. As Tally takes one final look at the city, she vows not to think about the possibility that Shay shouldn’t have trusted David. Tally hikes to the Rusty Ruins and finds the roller coaster, where she tries to decipher what “Take the coaster straight past the gap” must mean.
Perhaps unwittingly, Dr. Cable has given Tally a hoverboard that will help Tally achieve an even greater level of independence, as this board allows her to more easily make decisions. Even more importantly, this is the hoverboard Tally takes into the wilderness. The novel overwhelmingly positions the raw, untamed natural world as something akin to the potential of young people, so it follows that Tally will begin to see her own potential as she moves through the wilderness.
Themes
Tally takes the roller coaster at top speed, and before the turn after the gap, Tally continues straight, looking for “one that’s long and flat.” This makes no sense; she doesn’t know if she’s looking for a gap or more roller coaster tracks, but straight tracks seem silly. Tally continues through the ruins until she discovers what seems like a very large, flat, and straight roller coaster. In one direction it leads toward the sea. Since the next line of the directions mentions the sea, Tally goes that way. She thinks that if everything’s going to be this easy, this trip will be great.
Readers will probably deduce that Tally finds train tracks to follow. That Tally clearly has no idea what train tracks are shows again how disconnected she is from her culture’s past. This also offers more explanation for how the cities in the novel’s present are able to be so isolated. Without trade between cities (either of goods or of ideas), it’s far easier to enforce isolation.
Themes
