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 and Shay ride high above the ground through the Rusty Ruins, which are the hulking metal frames of buildings. They can see that people tried to escape whatever destroyed the city, and Tally remembers that the cars here couldn’t hover. Shay assures Tally that they’ll be able to keep hoverboarding—the Rusties loved to waste metal. Thinking about school again, Tally remembers that the Rusties didn’t use hoverstruts; all the buildings are crude, massive, and huge. The Rusties worked in factories, and the ruins here are bigger than the biggest Uglyville dorm. At night, the ruins feel more real to Tally. Her teachers always made the Rusties seem unbelievably stupid for burning trees and oil. Now, Tally can imagine people panicking and trying to escape the city.
The Rusties are based off of mid-2000s Americans, so the basics of this dead city will likely be familiar to readers. This allows the reader to understand just how far Tally’s society has come in terms of technology—that is, how much humanity has developed since people worked in factories and technology like hoverstruts would’ve seemed fantastical. Tally’s society is, in this sense, a kind of adult version of the Rusty society, as it’s a more developed and advanced iteration of human civilization. Spending time in the Rusty Ruins allows Tally to learn about her past, which gives her additional perspective that she needs in order to adopt a more mature outlook on the world.
Themes
Shay says she wants to show Tally something and leads her away from the maintained part of the ruins. They finally reach a metal wavy thing that Shay says is a roller coaster. A roller coaster, Shay explains, is for having fun, which shocks Tally—she’s never considered that the Rusties did anything but work in their factories and try to escape when their civilization met its end. Shay suggests that they hoverboard on the roller coaster and then tells Tally that doing so is dangerous unless she goes really fast. The ride is fantastic, and near the end, Shay warns Tally to speed up. At the top, Tally’s board drops—part of the track is missing. She screams, but almost instantly her board returns to her and she hits the other side of the break. At the end, Tally screams at Shay, but Shay insists that it’s more fun to not know the track is broken.
This is an important moment for Tally, as it’s the first time she starts to humanize the Rusties. By humanizing them, Tally will be better able to see the ways in which her society and the Rusty society aren’t so different. In turn, this will likely lead Tally to important lessons about both societies and in her personal life, and to make informed choices with others’ mistakes in mind. The break in the roller coaster track is a symbol for adulthood in general—there are always surprises like this in the real world, but Tally won’t encounter them in the artificial childhood that is life in the city.
Themes
Tally sits down, shaking, and Shay apologizes. Shay explains that nobody told her about the gap the first time, and she was angry at first but then thought it was cool. Tally calms down and asks who showed Shay the roller coaster. Shay says that older friends did, and suggests that uglies have been coming here and figuring out tricks for a long time—but they all turn pretty in the end. Tally says that’s a happy ending and asks how Shay knows this is called a roller coaster. Shay says there’s a guy who knows lots of things, but he’s not pretty. She makes Tally promise to never tell anyone about what she’s going to reveal, and Tally holds up her scarred hand to swear. Shay says she wants Tally to meet someone, but he’s not in town.
Tally’s gesture of holding up her scarred hand to swear her secrecy reminds the reader that Tally is still loyal to Peris, even if she’s now spending her time with Shay. Further, Tally’s loyalty to Peris filters how she thinks about everyone else—as long as Peris is at the forefront of her mind, she’ll likely still think favorably about pretties like him. By contrast, it seems that Shay isn’t thrilled that all these misbehaving uglies became pretty. This, once again, is a clue that Shay doesn’t want to become pretty herself—she’s content being independent and has no interest in conforming to how her society thinks she’s supposed to look or think.
Themes
