The City of Ember is a novel written by Jeanne DuPrau. Released in 2003, it is first novel in DuPrau's Books of Ember series and follows child protagonists Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow as they search for a way out of the titular city of Ember, which is beginning to suffer increasingly prolonged and dangerous power failures.
Characters[]
- Lina Mayfleet
- Doon Harrow
Publisher's summary[]
The city of Ember was built as a last refuge for the human race. Two hundred years later, the great lamps that light the city are beginning to dim. When Lina finds part of an ancient message, she’s sure it holds a secret that will save the city. Now, she and her friend Doon must race to figure out the clues to keep the lights on. If they succeed, they will have to convince everyone to follow them into danger.
But if they fail?
The lights will burn out and the darkness will close in forever.
Summary[]
As Earth is being ravaged by a series of apocalyptic events known as the Disaster, a coalition of architects, scientists, and doctors (called the Builders) create an underground city named Ember, with an initial population of 200 citizens (100 elderly adults, 100 babies), to ensure humanity survives, with the intention that future generations of the city will not know about the outside world or that they live underground.
They build the city to last for two centuries, after which the citizens of Ember will evacuate and return to the surface world. The Builders give the first mayor of the city a box with a timed lock set to open after 200 years, containing instructions explaining how to leave Ember. The box is passed successfully from mayor to mayor, until the seventh mayor who, thinking it could contain a cure for the deadly coughing disease he contracted, takes the box home and tries multiple times to break it open, but fails. He then dies before he can return the box to its rightful place or inform the next mayor of its importance.
Approximately two hundred and forty-one years after Ember is established, the city's supplies are in danger of exhaustion and its hydroelectric generator is in decay, causing the power to go out intermittently. At their graduation ceremony, young people are assigned jobs by lottery: Lina Mayfleet is assigned the job of "Pipeworks Laborer" and Doon Harrow is given the job of "Messenger". However, both are displeased with their assigned jobs, so they exchange their assignments and begin work in their respective positions. It is revealed that the seventh mayor was Lina's great-great-grandfather, and because of that, the box is actually in their own home.
By now, the timer has finished counting down and the lock has clicked open. When searching the closet, Lina's grandmother finds the box but tosses it aside, not realizing its importance. The opened box is found by Lina's baby sister, Poppy. When Lina comes home, she finds Poppy with torn pieces of paper in her hands and mouth. By the time Lina managed to get the paper from Poppy, they have already been mostly destroyed, therefore making it extremely hard for her to figure out what the papers actually said.
After examining the paper, she decides that its contents had been written by the Builders due to its writing style. Using some glue, Lina reassembles the message as best she can. There are many gaps and some words make no sense, so it proves difficult for Lina to completely salvage the writing. With the help of her friend Doon and her late father's friend Clary, she starts to piece together the writing. They discover that the title of this document is "Instructions for Egress", and presume that the document must show the way out of Ember. After much trial and error, they eventually manage to decipher most of the document.
The instructions lead to a hidden room built on the side of the river that flows underground throughout the city in the Pipeworks, an underground network of tunnels that carried the plumbing pipes of the city. The room contained hundreds of boats as well as matches and candles to create portable light, something never successfully created in Ember. The builders meant for the citizens of Ember to board these boats and be carried down the river into the outside world.
Lina's grandmother dies shortly after their discovery of the document, and Lina and Poppy move in with a neighbor, Mrs. Murdo. At work, Doon discovers that the mayor of Ember and a storeroom (the massive network of item storage under the city) worker named Looper have been stealing supplies, and he and Lina report the crime to the guards, who unknown to them, are also corrupt. Instead of arresting the mayor, they learn that the guards have declared them criminals and there are notices everywhere with their names. Doon and Lina plan to escape Ember in the boats and agree to meet in the Pipeworks at a certain time, but just before, Lina is arrested and taken to the mayor, who plans to throw her in jail.
Suddenly, a blackout occurs and allows her to escape without being seen; she meets Doon in the Pipeworks with her sister Poppy in tow. Lina, Doon, and Poppy escape in a boat through the river, its current carrying them forward. When the boat stops, they learn the origin of Ember from a diary left by one of its original colonists. Shortly after they are faced with a very steep climb and emerge onto the surface. After exploring the above world, they find a tunnel with a steep drop into a cave. Below, they see Ember's lights and realize that they had been living underground for years. To alert the rest of the city about how to leave Ember, they throw a packet with a letter detailing the path to exit, down to the center of Ember.
The packet is found by Mrs. Murdo on Harken Square.