The City of Ember

Doon, 12, is in the same class at Ember’s school as Lina. He lives with his father in a small, cluttered apartment above his father’s Small Items shop. Doon loves working on things and fixing broken objects with his hands. He is mechanically minded and extremely interested in machines, tools, and the way things work, especially the generator down under Ember that mysteriously powers the city. He has a secret desire to be the one to fix the generator and end the blackouts. He also yearns to make his father proud of him, so when he finally sees the generator and knows his input and knowledge are useless, he becomes angry and frustrated.

Doon is often temperamental in response to situations out of his control. He is a flawed Hero in that, while he is likeable and sympathetic, he also shows traits like anger and impatience. All of his traits are deeply human, and the mix of positive and negative characteristics make Doon a strong example of a round character. More driven by worry than Lina at the beginning of the story, Doon’s first introduction to readers shows a short-tempered boy who talks back to the powerful mayor and demonstrates an impulsive need to spread the truth about imminent danger that no one else wants to talk about. Doon’s confrontational nature contrasts with his kindness and genuine concern for Lina and for his city’s inhabitants in general. Doon is a boy who lives out of his element; his instincts to read, study, seek knowledge and truth are unfulfilled by the stagnated environs of Ember and the “books” in the city’s library, which are no more than shoddy pamphlets of personal experience, memories, suppositions, and ideas from generations of Emberites. They reveal nothing of the greater truth and answers Doon intuitively seeks, and offer only frustrating mysteries such as boats.

Like most adolescents, Doon initially seeks acceptance from his peers; he is angry when they laugh at him and disappointed at the notion of someone else revealing the secret egress: “It’s just that I thought we were going to find it” (131). Later, he wants again to give his father the chance to feel pride in Doon’s accomplishments: “Wouldn’t it be splendid to do it during the Singing? Stand up there in front of the whole city and say we’ve found it?” (175). Ultimately, and as direct evidence of Doon’s increasing maturity over the course of the story, he foregoes the glory he once held to be important in favor of saving everyone. He exhibits confidence, maturity, and ownership of his decision-making process in doing so, and comes to know a higher purpose than public recognition. His joy of discovery and fulfillment in investigating the real world above Ember is clear when, finally freed to the outside world and the truth it represents, he sees the fox-like creature: “That was the most wonderful thing I have seen in my whole life” (267).

Clary is a tall, strong-looking woman who runs the greenhouses. She knew Lina’s father, who also worked at the greenhouses before he died. Lina grew up loving the greenhouse environment and the tasks Clary gave her like picking carrots, and she goes there often seeking both Clary’s companionship and a respite from sadness over the loss of her parents. Clary is kind though she has a rough appearance.

Clary feels the need to promote growth and maturation in Lina out of not only her own kindness but also a sense of duty and obligation to Lina’s father. She does not talk down to Lina but treats her more like a peer, though when Sadge makes his painful way out of the Unknown Regions, Clary attempts to protect Lina from his dire predictions. Clary serves as a Mentor character archetype to Lina with her words and demeanor, but she does not know how to answer Lina’s questions about the dark and Ember’s plight. Instead, she offers Lina a bean seed and a lesson on life: “What makes living things go is inside them somehow” (68). While she knows about the greenhouse and the food products grown there, she does not understand the new potato disease, and she cannot fix the beehives nor the sprinkler system. Clary also offers a moral evaluation of the rapid worsening of Ember’s situation when Lina reveals the news about Mayor Cole and his secret supply stash: “There is so much darkness in Ember, Lina. It’s not just outside it’s inside us too. Everyone has some darkness inside. It’s like a hungry creature. It wants and wants and wants with a terrible power. And the more you give it, the bigger and hungrier gets” (168). She does not, however, offer any suggestions on how to combat this darkness.

Ultimately, Clary symbolizes the need to seek new learning, as all of Clary’s store of practical knowledge is effectively drained. In a subtle act of torch-passing, she helpfully sends Lina out toward the quest by teaching her the word that heads the Instructions: “If you add an s to this word, right where this tear in the paper is, you get ‘Egress’ […] It means the exit” (170-71). The limitations of Clary’s own abilities allow her to help Lina and Doon discover their own potential.

Mayor Cole is characterized as “a vast, heavy man, so big in the middle that his arms looked small and dangling” (7). He is grayish in complexion and generally unhealthy-looking. His poor health mirrors his secret intentions and behaviors, as he profits from Looper’s deliveries and sits on a secret stockpile of rare riches like food and light bulbs. Even before readers discover his treachery, Mayor Cole unpleasantly snaps at Doon on Assignment Day, and he covers his ineptitude at calming the people with a faulty, unhelpful bullhorn at the Town Meeting. He is both indirectly and directly characterized as increasingly immoral throughout the rising action, such as when Doon discovers his treasure stash: “On the table were dishes smeared with the remains of food, and in the armchair facing Doon was a great blob of a person whose head was flopped backwards […]” (156).

This image of Mayor Cole sleeping comfortably in a cushy chair surrounded by plenty calls to mind images of dictators and greedy kings who live in splendor while their citizens or subjects toil in conflict and hunger. Mayor Cole is the novel’s primary antagonist, embodying the greed and pride that Lina and Doon overcome and working in opposition to his citizens’ needs. He is particularly vile when he confronts Lina on Singing Day and disgustedly tells her that her curiosity is “dangerous” and “unhealthy” (217). He makes it evident that he wants the people of Ember to believe they are lucky and well-tended, though he knows this is not true.