A People In Darkness

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

Ember is a city living in darkness, ignorance, and ever-increasing poverty: literal and metaphorical darkness both threaten to engulf its hapless citizens. Only two 12-year-olds -- as impoverished and ignorant as everyone else, but gifted with a bit more curiosity and get-up-and-go -- stand between Ember and its plunge into utter blackness, both in the streets and in spirit.

I have never been a person who has been afraid of the dark -- at least, not on its own terms: the pitch-blackness of my room growing up was never a concern, but naturally the same darkness on an urban street at night was a bit unsettling and arousing of my fight-or-flight (usually the latter) instincts. But the mere fact of darkness itself was never the worry for me that it was for others of my age. In fact, it was positively soothing.

The darkness surrounding Ember is, on the contrary, positively suffocating.

Much of this feeling arises from the simple yet effective fact that unless there is a working electric light present in a given location, the people of Ember have never been able to view that location for themselves. They have no portable lights of any kind -- not even fire -- and since they aren't certain how even the existing lights themselves function, they are growing increasingly panicked and edging closer to chaos with each passing (and increasingly lengthy) blackout.

It's even more terrifying for the reader, who is aware of several scary things the citizens of Ember take for granted -- the lack of the sun and moon and stars, for instance, which plays on the reader's claustrophobic sensibilities in a grandly nervewracking manner.

If these images -- darkness, light, a city -- sound familiar, you're not the only one to think so. All while I read this book I kept thinking of that old (well, not that old, I guess) hymn from church:

The people in darkness
Have seen a great light
The lord of our longing
Has conquered the night ...

It isn't so much that DuPrau is pushing religious imagery; her story merely uses images in common with both religion and intellectual pursuits (enlightenment, illumination, etc.). Meaning you can draw those connections without having to buy in to the ideology.

There is, in fact, religion in Ember, but it is only vaguely sketched out and has to do more with the imminent return of the mysterious Builders than it does with the questions of light and darkness -- oh, and exodus, salvation, and emergence into the light of day, now that you mention it.

The last scene is particularly good -- so much so that no description of mine can do it justice. Suffice to say that it was an illuminating experience -- with pun fully intended.