44 pages • 1 hour read
Jeanne DuPrauThe City of Ember
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Complex Morality of Secrets
Much of the conflict in The City of Ember comes from keeping secrets. DuPrau’s use of a prologue device in the viewpoint of a third-person omniscient narrator makes the reader privy to the chief builder’s plan for the secret Instructions, resulting in reader suspense and dramatic irony that lasts for most of the book. Readers know far more about Ember and the Instructions, at first, than any of the living inhabitants. For example, the reader exclusively knows the reason why the crucial Instructions were in Granny’s closet—but DuPrau ensures that her readers do not know everything, portraying secrets in the novel as mysteries that require cooperation and trust to solve.
Lina and Doon make their discoveries and surpass even the reader’s knowledge of Ember’s past by working together. While working on the larger secret of what the Instructions might contain, they compile their information gleaned from Lina’s friend Lizzie and Doon’s off-hours Pipeworks explorations. First, they establish that someone can get into the locked room in Tunnel 351—whose secrecy frustrates Lina: “As if he’d found something! What was it! I can’t stand not to know!” (130). Later, they learn the extent of the deceit: “The mayor has a secret treasure room in the Pipeworks” (158). The secret grows in complexity when, in trying to expose the secret to guards, Lina and Doon find themselves blamed and persecuted. The children realize that there are people who are as committed to maintaining secrets as they are devoted to revealing them. By aligning her protagonists with truthfulness, DuPrau criticizes how power can be used to subjugate others through lies and propaganda.
Often in the novel, a secret in the hands of the wrong person leads to frustration. Lina trusts only a few souls with the Instructions, but Captain Fleery and Lizzie turn out to be ineffective choices. Lina is frustrated with Captain Fleery’s insistence that rescue is inevitable and with Lizzie’s dismissal of the importance of the Instructions. In juxtaposition to their reactions, Clary’s serious and engaged response is much more fulfilling to Lina, and her appeal to Clary proves effective, as Clary crucially reveals the meaning of Egress.
Lina and Doon also make an error by preserving rather than revealing their secret discovery, reinforcing DuPrau’s suggestion of the moral imperative of truthfulness. The children want a grand, showstopping moment on the steps of the Gathering Hall for all to see and hear. Their choice to prioritize spectacle over sharing what they’ve discovered about Egress as quickly as possible creates a new complication when Lina forgets to leave the written note for Clary, and Lina and Doon realize they have brought the secret instructions right out of Ember with them.
These and other secrets among the characters infuse the novel with drama, suspense, and a tone of mystery that drives the plot and subplot conflicts. It is fitting that secrets are at the root of Ember’s conflict; after all, the city itself is the biggest secret, as readers learn from the anonymous journal writer near the end of the story; she and all other original inhabitants of Ember are sworn to secrecy of the government’s plan. Once that initial old generation of volunteers dies, it is not clear that anyone in Ember, even the virtuous mayors safeguarding the lockbox, know any of the real secret of their home’s location until Doon and Lina see the real outside for the first time. This notion of secrecy as necessary to survival complicates DuPrau’s exploration of honesty and deceit earlier in the novel, hinting at the morally complex world that Lina and Doon are only just becoming aware of.
Learning and Progress Versus Ignorance and Status Quo
Many middle grade novels feature protagonists who, like Lina and Doon, grow mentally and emotionally through a coming-of-age experience. In The City of Ember, Lina’s and Doon’s maturation is particularly notable because this maturation is not an inevitable part of society, and many of their peers and elders embrace the status quo. Through this unique dynamic, DuPrau explores the importance of knowledge and progress to the long-term health and safety of communities.
Most citizens of Ember accept their work Assignment, attend the Singing, stay out of the Unknown Regions, and don’t ask questions. Even the worsening blackouts and threats of increasing shortages initially prompt only a “hunker down” response; later, after the longest-ever seven-minute blackout, the community meeting rapidly skips over discussion or questions and turns to panic. This panic is repeated at the end of the Singing, an event that symbolizes how most Emberites know no emotional or philosophical middle ground; they are either happily grateful with all things Ember or filled with fear and an inexplicable desperation for a solution.
By contrast, Doon and Lina represent the quest for knowledge in a dim world of oblivion. Doon wants to learn more about important things like the generator in the hopes that he can effect change and improvement, and even makes an unheard-of job switch with Lina to help along his education. Lina must grow up quickly when Granny passes away: “But she felt as if she had suddenly gotten older in the last three days. She was a sort of mother herself now. What happened to Poppy was more or less up to her” (143). Neither child, however, fully grasps the extent to which they must fight for the truth until they receive a less-than-fulfilling response upon exposing the mayor’s theft to the guards—“Action will be taken, you may be sure. Some sort of action. Quite soon” (165)—followed by the realization that the threat of “vicious rumors” will soon be pinned on them. As Lina and Doon gain literal knowledge of words, objects, and technology beyond their imagining, they also gain a more mature, if more cynical, perspective on the systems and people that are supposed to protect them. This disillusionment with the government of Ember ultimately empowers them to escape and create hope for the rest of the Emberites.
Inspired by Clary’s key knowledge of the word egress, Lina and Doon begin to rely on their own ability to observe, guess, calculate, and reason. In this way, they decipher the Instructions and make logical suppositions of the steps to egress. Doon recalls seeing the writing on the river rocks on his Pipeworks explorations: “His eyes flew open in the dark, his heart began to hammer, and he gave up on sleeping and lay in state of terrible impatience for the rest of the night” (177). Knowledge and imminent discovery are the most exciting things that ever happened to him. Together Lina and Doon reason out the puzzle of the matches and candles, until a strong symbol for new ideas comes to life in their hands: “It’s the movable light” (190).
Lina and Doon are so caught up in the discovery process and their newfound knowledge that they realize, almost too late, that sharing valuable information is often as important as its finding. Luckily, through additional diligent investigation and perseverance, Lina and Doon come across a view of Ember from far above, giving them the opportunity to communicate their own Instructions and serve, hopefully, as guiding lights to others.
The Dichotomy of Selfishness and Selflessness
In Ember, scarcity promotes selfishness in many characters. While some items ran out a while before the novel starts, the disappearance of other more crucial goods looms in the near future. Lina and Poppy draw on can labels to save paper, and the diseased staple potato crop will strain the supply of other foods. Worst of all, rumors abound that light bulbs will soon run out, so even if the generator keeps running, the lights of Ember may soon go dark for good. The scarcity of these necessary items figuratively darkens the atmosphere in Ember. DuPrau portrays many Emberites as grateful for what they have, evidenced by traditions like the Singing, but also explores how some characters allow their fear, greed, and social power to influence selfish decisions.
The seventh mayor attempted to break the lockbox open ahead of schedule on the suspicion it might hold medicine he needed personally, then hid the box without sharing news of its existence as expected. Looper uses his position as Storeroom Clerk to steal the last rare items from back shelves when he finds them, and his girlfriend Lizzie thinks nothing of enjoying the treats herself. Mayor Cole is the strongest representation of greed as he hordes goods in a secret room in the Pipeworks; moreover, when Doon discovers the room, the mayor is fast asleep amidst his treasures. Mayor Cole’s complete disregard for the people who are trusting him to find a solution to Ember’s blackouts and shortages proves to Doon that his own urge to help the city is warranted.
Lina knows the feeling of selfishness; she experiences it when she sees the colored pencils in Looper’s shop: “It was like hunger, what she felt. It was the same as when her hand sometimes seemed to reach out by itself to grab a piece of food. It was too strong to resist” (76). Lina determines, though, that the selfish feeling is not pleasant. Like Doon, Lina holds out for a more expansive solution to Ember’s pending disaster than secretly hording items or thinking only of herself. Lina goes from resisting the commonsense expense of Granny’s coat in favor of her own pleasure (the colored pencils), to selflessness in tending to Granny in her last hours: “And all day, that’s what Lina did […] She stroked Granny’s forehead, held her hand, and talked to her about cheerful things” (133-34). Later, Lina confronts Lizzie when Lizzie claims the market suddenly had a few cans of rare finds: “No market would just forget about things like that. Tell me the truth” (149). When Lizzie tries to assure Lina’s silence on the matter by offering her a bite of pineapple, Lina’s discomfort with greed and selfishness allows her to reject the offer. Unlike Lizzie’s guiltless hoarding, Lina’s concession to selfishness in buying the pencils teaches her to be more aware of the needs of those around her.
Lina and Doon, then, stand out as symbols of selflessness throughout the rising action of the novel, and this association is echoed even more strongly as the book concludes. When they find the multitude of boats just before their climactic journey out, they are relieved; Doon’s first reaction is, “Enough for everyone, I suppose” (194). Most importantly, they spend their first day in the new outside world selflessly searching for a way back to Ember, so that they can lead the others out. By aligning her protagonists with selflessness and her antagonists with greed, DuPrau posits that communities are best served by mutual consideration and generosity among citizens.
