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Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mortal Engines, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Class
Sacrifice
Dangers of Technology
The Importance of History
Prejudice and First Impressions
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Tom wakes up feeling achy. He seems to be lying in mud. Hester is there with him, and she’s taken part of his shirt to treat a wound on her leg. Tom’s angry that she took part of his shirt without asking, but Hester just says he should have let her kill Valentine and limps off.
Tom’s fall down the garbage chute is not just a literal fall but also a metaphorical sign of how abruptly he has just lost his old position in London society, banished to become an outcast.
Themes
Although Tom doesn’t like Hester, he doesn’t want to be alone, so he follows her. He asks where she’s going, and she says back to London. She complains it took her two years to find London on foot the first time. Tom starts to cry, and Hester gets angry at him, saying she didn’t even cry when Valentine murdered her parents. Tom isn’t sure if he believes her, but he offers to travel with her back to London. He feels that if Valentine has done anything wrong, the law will take care of it. Hester scoffs at this but allows Tom to join her anyway.
Although Hester and Tom are different from each other and don’t even like each other much, the harsh conditions outside London make it much smarter for them to stay together, showing how difficult situations often force people to cooperate. Hester reveals that she is more cynical than Tom, who still has faith in institutions like the legal system.
Themes
