80 pages • 2 hours read
Hugh HoweyA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapters 1-4
Part 1, Chapters 5-7
Part 2, Chapters 1-5
Part 2, Chapters 6-9
Part 3, Chapters 1-5
Part 3, Chapters 6-10
Part 3, Chapters 11-13
Part 4, Chapters 0-5
Part 4, Chapters 6-10
Part 4, Chapters 11-15
Part 4, Chapters 16-21
Part 5, Chapters 1-5
Part 5, Chapters 6-10
Part 5, Chapters 11-15
Part 5, Chapters 16-20
Part 5, Chapters 21-25
Part 5, Chapters 26-30
Epilogue
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
“‘And what makes you think it was us, that it was the good guys who wiped the servers?’ She half turned and smiled grimly. ‘Who says we are the good guys?’”
Allison’s question to Holston presages the later revelation at the novel’s climax that it was the people of the silos themselves who caused the apocalyptic event that killed most of the world. It also highlights the conflict that many of the novel’s characters experience between upholding order in the silo and following their own moral compass—it is unclear which route would make them the “good guys.” This is the same conflict that eventually lead’s to Holston’s death. Allison’s doubts points to the mystery of who controls information in the silos, and to the importance of controlling that information. Her curiosity and search for knowledge are exactly the dangerous sort that Bernard tries to stamp out for the sake of the safety of the whole silo.
“The enormous pent up pressure of the place was now hissing through the seams in whispers.”
The sense of pressure bearing down on the people who live in the silo is a motif in Wool. The cleaning is a ritual that provides relief from this pressure, which arises from the unnatural condition of living in cramped, underground quarters. Holston thinks this as Allison, who is going to clean, is put in the holding cell. He feels how the tension in the silo is starting to lessen, as the cost of his wife’s life. The hissing whispers also invoke the sense of secrecy and lies that pervade the silo.
“‘Nothing you see is real.’”
Allison, having discovered the code for a program that can alter how reality appears, says this to Holston as she heads for her death. Allison’s discovery makes her feel that she may survive the cleaning and enter a better world. The tragic irony is that, while Allison is right about the deception perpetrated on the people of the silo, she is nevertheless still deceived as to the real nature of their world. Her statement indicates that the lies coming from IT run deep.
“After much deliberation, Mayor Jahns selected a pair of needles. She always chose carefully, for proper gauge was critical. Too small a needle, and the knitting would prove difficult, and resulting sweater too tight and constricting. Too large a needle on the other hand, and it would create a garment full of large holes. The knitting would remain loose. One would be able to see right through it.”
Jahns’s knitting is a metaphor for the fragile functioning of the whole silo. Later chapter titles (“Proper Gauge,”“Casting Off,”“The Unraveling”) refer to this scene. Jahns, from his position of mayor, is uniquely aware of how delicate the balance is that keeps life in the silo going. The constricting sweater that results from a small gauge represents an overly repressive society that will lead to a revolt. One that is too loose, however, would be too transparent, making the lies that underpin the silo’s government too obvious too its citizens.
“Her people cheered while a good man, her friend, her partner in keeping them alive and well, lay dead on a hill next to his wife. If she gave a speech, if it weren’t full of the forbidden it would be like this: that no two better people had ever gone to a cleaning of their own free wills, and what did that say about the lot of them who remained?”
This passage reveals Jahns’s deep ambivalence about the cleaning ritual. Jahns, though she is an authority figure in charge of upholding the silos laws, has “forbidden” thoughts. She doubts the basic tenets that underpin life in the silo society. Her comparison between the cleaners and those who remain reflects one of the central themes of the novel, the tension between the individual and the who community.
“The point of the silo was for the people to keep the machines running, when Jahns had always, her entire life, seen it the other way around.”
On her journey down to Mechanical, Jahns acquires a new view of life in the silo that she governs. She realizes, having passed through Mechanical and IT, that the people are devoted to the machines for the sake of the machines themselves, rather than as a way to keep themselves alive. Though Jahns does not know the exact purpose of the servers, this thought hints at their purpose, and by extension the whole purpose of the silo. They are meant to preserve humanity and its knowledge for the future. The people of the silo are not meant to really live full lives, but to ensure the return of human life aboveground in the future.
“The silo was something she had always taken for granted. The priests say it had always been here, that it was lovingly created by a caring God, that everything they would ever need had been provided for. Juliette had a hard time with this story. A few years ago, she had been on the first team to drill past 10,000 feet and hit new oil reserves. She had a sense of the size and scope of the world below them. And then she had seen with her own eyes the view of the outside with its phantom-like sheets of smoke they called clouds rolling by on miraculous heights. She had even seen a star, which Lukas thought stood an inconceivable distance away. What God would make so much rock below and air above and just a measly silo between them?[…]It hadn’t been created by a god—it was probably designed by IT.”
Unafraid of taboo thoughts, Juliette develops the kind of curiosity that Bernard considers dangerous. As she considers the enormous scope of the world compared to the cramped paucity of the silo, she starts to come closer to the truth that it was designed by humans rather than by a divinity, as she was taught. Juliette’s line of thought makes it clear why so many ideas are forbidden in the silo. Juliette’s doubts in the silo are a microcosmic version of human existential doubts in the obsolete, aboveground world.
“Cleaning was the highest law and the deepest religion, and both of these were intertwined and housed within [IT’s] secretive walls.”
Juliette’s thought points to the importance of cleaning in the silo and starts to give an explanation for the elite status that IT occupies in it. Cleaning, essentially a ritual sacrifice, is the capital punishment of the silo as well as the cause of its biggest celebration. It is imbued with a mystical as well as civil significance. IT, which builds the cleaning suits and monitors the cameras, is the authority that rules over cleaning. Although the mayor is nominally in charge of the silo, it is really IT that rules.
“‘Storm IT, and then what? Take over running this place?’
‘We already run this place,’ Knox growled.”
Knox’s resentful response here points to the simmering tension between Mechanical and IT, which represents the conflict between the practical, concrete work of manufacturing and mechanics and the more abstract function of managing information. From Knox’s point of view, as well as from Juliette’s, Mechanical powers the real functioning of the silo, providing it with essential materials and power. Juliette is not computer-savvy and does not understand or respect the functions that the servers perform. As Bernard sees it, IT runs the silo, as it represents the orders of the secretive Operation Fifty of the World Order, builds the cleaning suits, and protects all of humanity’s accumulated knowledge and history in the servers.
“‘One of my people was taken, and it was the oldest of us, the wisest of us, who intervened on her behalf. It was the weakest and most scared who braved his neck. And whoever of you he turned to for help, and who gave it, I owe you my life[…] You gave her more than a chance to walk over that hill, to die in peace and out of sight. You gave me the courage to open my eyes. To see this veil of lies we live behind.’”
Knox shows great leadership abilities when he gives this rousing speech to the works of Supply. It contains several ironies. He credits the supply worker who replaced the suit parts with giving him life, but Knox will die shortly in the ensuing battle. Likewise, he thanks them for letting Juliette die in peace, yet Juliette is still alive. His description of his ideological awakening due to Juliette’s failed cleaning also falls in line with what Bernard and the Order expect. Knox starts to see through the carefully constructed deception and as a result leads his people to an uprising and death.
“You were lied to. And the toppers feel this ever more keenly, trust me. It’s the mids, the people who aspire upward without knowing and who look down on us without compassion that will be the most reluctant.”
Knox is surprised to hear that McLain thinks the people of the up-top will be most sympathetic to the cause of those from the down-deep. McLain’s assessment of the loyalties at the various levels of the silos reveals underlying class tensions in the silo. The people from the middle levels are focused on an upward ascent, while those who live on the top take their position for granted and are able to consider larger questions. They also live in view of the dead bodies on the hills on the screens in the cafeteria. The levels of the silo could be viewed as a metaphor for socioeconomic classes, with the mids representing the upwardly mobile middle class.
“He saw it in that dumb dog’s eyes, that it would do anything for him if only he would ask. And this weight bearing down on his chest, of the many who felt that way for him and for McLain—Knox decided that this was the heaviest burden of them all.”
As Knox prepares to lead his people into battle, he feels the heavy burden of leadership. Mayor Jahns had the same sentiment when traveling through the silo and seeing her citizens and, ironically, so do Knox’s enemies, Bernard and the voice from Silo 1. All of these characters feel that people’s lives are in their hands, and that they must make difficult choices that could lead to the loss of some of them.
“‘We are the seeds,” he said. ‘This is a silo. They put us here for the bad times[…] but it won’t work[…] You can’t leave seeds this long[…]Not in the dark like this. Nope […]Seeds don’t go crazy[…] They don’t. They have bad days and lots of good ones, but it doesn’t matter them. You leave them and leave them, however many you bury, and they do what seeds do when they’re left alone too long[…]we rot. All of us. We go bad down here, and we rot so deep that we won’t grow anymore[…] We’ll never grow again.’”
In this revelatory moment, Solo explains to Juliette the purpose of the silos. The people of the silos are metaphorical seeds, akin to grain preserved in farm silos, meant to save humanity for when it can inhabit the earth aboveground again. Solo believes, however, that people will not be able to withstand the pressurized conditions of the silo, and will go insane, or “rot.” Solo’s childlike way of speaking also indicates his stunted development, thereby underscoring his point about not growing. Solo’s beliefs about the people’s fragile psyches provides support for Bernard’s belief that conditions must be strictly controlled.
“An uprising, just like the fables of their youth[…]It startled Knox, this link to a mysterious past.[…]Had he become the bad people he’d learned about in youth? Or had he been lied to? It hurt his head to consider, but here he was, leading a revolution. And yet it felt so right. So necessary. What if that former clash had felt the same? Had felt the same in the breasts of the men and women who’d waged it?”
Knox experiences a sense of foreboding as he realizes that he is leading an uprising as people before him have done. His thoughts reflect the book’s theme of history repeating itself, and of the tragic fates that humans are destined to enact. His thought that the revolt seems “necessary” underscores the inevitability of fate. Even though he doubts his actions, he feels destined to go through with them. His doubts also reference Allison’s earlier question— “Who says we are the good guys?’” (16)—and indicates the difficulty of predicting the results of actions, despite the intentions behind them.
“The world is not thy friend nor the world’s law.
Villain and he be many miles asunder.
And all these woes shall serve
for sweet discourses in our time to come.
He that is stricken blind cannot forget
the precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
One fire burns out another’s burning,
one pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish.”
This passage is an amalgam of lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The form in which these lines appear here shows that, while some culture has survived in the silo, it has come down to the silo in an altered form. Howey has chosen these particular lines for their relevance to the plot of Wool. First, the world of the silo and its laws, as even their upholders know, are cruel and oppressive to the masses. The next line, in which Juliet says in the original play that Romeo is not a villain, refers to the difficulty, in this conflict in the silo, of knowing who is a villain and who is the “good guy” (16), as Allison puts it. The “discourse” refers to the stories passed down of past rebellions and implies that this too is destined to be yet another failed uprising that will enter the canon. The humans of the silo, living a degraded form of life have metaphorically lost their sight, yet they still feel the loss of the pre-apocalyptic way of life. Finally, the last two lines refer to the ritual sacrifice of the cleaning; the death and suffering of an individual lessens the psychological burdens on the rest of the population.
“‘It means we can’t change what’s already happened, but we can have an impact on what happens next’
Bernard clapped his small hands together. ‘Very good.’
‘And this—’ Lukas turned and rested one hand on the thick book. He continued, unbidden, ‘—the Order. This is a roadmap for how to get through all the bad that’s piled up between our past and the future’s hope. This is the stuff we can prevent, that we can fix.’”
Bernard’s approves of what Lukas says here, taking it to be evidence that Lukas is absorbing his teachings and accepting his role as future head of IT. The irony, however, is that Lukas is repeating the philosophy that Juliette, Bernard’s enemy, is secretly telling him over the wire. Juliette, like Bernard, is a strong believer in preventative maintenance and repairing things, though she does it by mechanical means rather than those of psychological control. Bernard and Juliette, unbeknownst to them, are connected via Lukas, who represents a bridge between their worldviews. Lukas, who is able to sympathize with both of their viewpoints, finds himself increasingly conflicted.
“She dreamed of fixing up one of the diggers that had built this place, a machine buried and hidden at the long end of its vertical toil, and driving it through the earth itself to eighteen’s down deep. She dreamed of breaking that blockade, of leading her people back to these dry corridors and getting this dead place working again. She dreamed of operating a silo without all the lies and deceptions. Juliette waded through the heavy water toward the security gate, dreaming these childish dreams, discovering that they somehow steeled her resolve.”
This scene provides insight into Juliette’s motives and character. Juliette’s determination to undergo this terrifying task is strengthened by her dreams of fix the broken silo and connecting it with Silo 18. She is driven, as shown in other instances, by the desire to repair, connect, and spread truth. Her vision of progress is a radical departure from the silos’ design, which entails deliberate isolation and deception. Her thoughts here imply the future of the silos after the novel’s conclusion.
“‘You will have to be cruel to your children to not lose them.’”
The mysterious voice from Silo 1 says this to Lukas following his official induction as future head of IT. This statement reveals a guiding tenet of the silo’s shady government and also references a central theme of the book, the sacrifice and suffering of individuals for the sake of preserving the whole community. The voice also reveals here that even at the very top of the government, repression does not stem from sheer sadism, and that leadership is a heavy burden.
“‘The reason is the purpose.’”
As the novel reaches its climax, Lukas receives the stunning revelation that the builders of the silo were not only reacting to a cataclysmic event that drove humans underground, but that they themselves caused it. Lukas now shares in the burden of this terrible knowledge with Bernard. In knowing that his ancestors killed off most of the world’s population and drove the survivors into cramped underground quarters, he is filled with horror and guilt.
“Now you see why some facts, some bits of knowledge have to be snuffed out as soon as they form. Curiosity would blow across such embers and burn this silo to the ground.”
Bernard’s teaching here implies that free thought threatens authoritarian systems. The way of life in the silo requires a particular psychological state from its residents and anything that disturbs it threatens the whole order. This presents two thematic conflicts that pervade the novel—the tension between the individual’s freedom and the safety of the whole, as well as the tension between stabilizing lies and repression as opposed to the dangerous search for truth and progress.
“Evil men did this, but they’re gone. Forget them. Just know this: They locked up their brood as a fucked-up form of their own survival. They put us in this game, a game where breaking the rules means we all die, every single one of us. But living by those rules, obeying them, means we all suffer.”
Uncharacteristically, Bernard reveals that he hates the people who founded the silos, though he follows the directives put down by them. This disclosure provides insight into Bernard’s motivations and makes him a more rounded and sympathetic character. He believes that he finds himself in an impossible position. He has to uphold cruel, repressive rules to avoid a much worse calamity. He is therefore able to think of his ancestors as evil without extending that judgment to himself. Bernard, more than anyone else in the silo, is burdened by this terrible knowledge, which makes him a lonely figure. His description of life in the silo can also be seen as a metaphor for human existence in general—living entails suffering.
“There could be a red X on them all. This is what they should fear, not each other. He touched the metal cage that kept the radio controls locked away from him, feeling the truth of this and the silliness of broadcasting this to everyone else. It was naïve. It wouldn’t change anything. The short-term rage to be sated at the end of a barrel was too easy to act on. Staving off extinction required something else, something with more vision, something impossibly patient.”
As Lukas listens to the battle down in Mechanical, he reflects on the event from his newly acquired high-level point of view. Chaos, he realizes, poses the biggest risk to the silo’s survival. Short-term gratification of violent impulses threatens the careful cooperation that a successful society requires. At the same time, he believes it would be futile to try to teach people this truth, a conclusion opposed to Juliette’s. Ultimately, his views on human nature are more pessimistic.
“They would say he had broken down and uttered the fateful taboo, but Lukas now knew why people were put out. He was the virus. If he sneezed the wrong words, it would kill everyone he knew.”
Lukas’s reflections as Peter leads him to execution reference Bernard’s teaching that ideas are contagious. Even as he is being led to his death, Lukas sympathizes with the reasoning behind sending people to die via cleaning, and he believes himself to be dangerous. His thoughts here show that Lukas has neither quite rejected Bernard nor accept Juliette’s vision but continues to take a middle view.
“Such things made more sense in light of silo seventeen. So much about her previous life made sense. Things that once seemed twisted now had a sort of pattern. A logic about them. The expense of sending a wire, the spacing of the levels, the single and cramped stairway, the bright colors for particular jobs, dividing the silo into sections, breeding mistrust . . . it was all designed. She’d seen hints of this before, but never knew why. Now this empty silo told her, the presence of these kids told her. It turned out some crooked things looked even worse when straightened. Some tangled knows only made sense once unraveled.”
Juliette, since her appointment as sheriff and her cleaning, has been seeking the truth about the silo and revenge against Bernard. Here, however, she sees the logic behind many of the oppressive mechanisms in Silo 18. She is especially disturbed to see a 15-year-old with a baby and considers how her own silo required her to implant birth control at an early age. Juliette considers two poles—one tragic due to a lack of civilization and government and the other full of oppressive rules and restrictions—and sees that the latter has its benefits. Although she considers the danger of truth here, she still remains optimistic about spreading it throughout Silo 18.
“So it’s us against them. And not the people in the silos, not the people working day to day who don’t know, but those at the top who do. Silo eighteen will be different. Full of knowledge, of purpose. Think about it. Instead of manipulating people, why not empower them? Let them know what we’re up against. And have that drive our collective will.”
At the end of the novel Juliette, offered the role of mayor, plans a radical restructuring, a silo-wide revolt against Operation Fifty of the World Order. Rather than a system of authoritarian power stemming from the mysterious upper echelons in Silo 1, she imagines placing power into the people’s hands by providing them with knowledge—a more democratic system. Juliette’s vision is optimistic and also risky, as revolutions are; it will entail overturning the oppressive, but careful and researched-based, schemes Bernard promoted.