The City of Ember: Chapter 3 Summary & Analysis

Earlier that morning, Doon arrived at the Pipeworks, excited to do useful, important work. He finds a room filled with people putting on boots and slickers. The Pipeworks director, Lister Munk, gives him size medium boots to wear. The boots are worn and cracked. Doon also gets a tool belt, and then Lister assigns Doon to work with a young woman named Arlin Froll. Without so much as a smile or a greeting, she leads Doon down a damp, worn staircase. Doon starts to hear a low roar and wonders if it’s the generator, but when Arlin opens a door marked “Main Tunnel,” he sees that it’s the river. Like many in Ember, Doon has never seen the river and always imagined it looked like a horizontal sink faucet. The river, however, is huge, wide, and thunderous. It makes Doon’s heart stop.

Doon and Arlin stand on a six-foot wide path that runs parallel to the river. The river runs along the north side of Ember, and all the Pipeworks tunnels branch off the path to the south, under the city. Arlin leads Doon to the beginning of the river, where it bursts out of a chasm, and points to a big double door containing the generator room. She acts scandalized when Doon asks if they can go in. Then, Arlin leads him back down the path to where the river vanishes into the wall before leading him to Tunnel 97, where their job is. She shows him how to use his map to find his way around and warns him that it’s easy to get lost. On the walk, Doon calculates that he’s about 50 feet underground. The thought makes him nervous.

Doon and Arlin find their job: a spurt of water coming straight out of the wall. They fix it, but it takes the whole morning. Doon realizes that the city is in horrendous shape: the lights are failing, the pipes are leaking, they’re about to run out of supplies, and no one is doing anything to fix these issues. When it’s time for lunch, Arlin tells Doon to stay put while she eats with friends. Doon, however, finds his way back to the main tunnel and waits by the door to the generator room until someone comes out. He slips in before the door closes and almost falls over; the noise is earsplitting. The generator is a black machine two stories high, and people wearing earmuffs scurry around it. Doon catches the attention of one man and yells that he wants to learn, but the man glares at Doon.

Doon stands and watches for a few minutes as people run between the generator and big bins of bolts, screws, and gears. He leaves after a few minutes, horrified. He’s spent his entire life taking things apart and putting them back together again, and he’s proud of what he’s learned. He knows he doesn’t understand electricity, though, and he thought that seeing the generator would solve this mystery for him—but now, he knows that was a foolish idea. Doon suspects that no one knows how the generator works, and that they’re just trying to keep it from falling apart. Doon confirms this when, after work, he catches the man and asks about the generator. The man says he doesn’t know how it works; he just knows the river makes it run. His job is just to keep it from breaking down.

The man says that he’s been working on the generator for 20 years and it’s always seemed fine, but now, it seems to break down every few minutes. With a wry smile, the man says it won’t matter if the generator breaks down forever if they run out of light bulbs first. This is what’s on Doon’s mind as he sees Lina on the roof of the Gathering Hall, and he’s angry that she seems so lighthearted when everything is dark and dire. Doon heads for the apartment he shares with his father, which is above his father’s Small Items shop. It contains bits of things that might be useful someday, like nails, springs, doorknobs, and chunks of wood, and there are boxes of shop items in the apartment too. Doon goes upstairs without greeting his father and flops on the couch.

Doon feels stupid for thinking he could understand the generator after a few minutes, especially when others don’t understand it after working on it for their whole lives. Doon thinks that he’s always thought of himself as being smarter than other people, and he’s always wanted to be the one to save Ember by figuring out the mystery of electricity. Doon’s father has been telling him for his entire life that Doon is smart and will do something great, but now, Doon’s job seems even more useless than being a messenger. He picks up a shoe heel and hurls it at the front door just as it opens, hitting his father in the ear. Doon’s anger disappears instantly.

Doon apologizes and explains that he got angry. Doon’s father asks about Doon’s first day at work, and Doon tells him everything. With a sigh, Doon’s father validates Doon’s fears and sense of hopelessness, but he suggests that Doon has choices as to what to do with his job and what he learns. Doon’s father suggests that the best thing Doon can do is pay attention, as then, he’ll know things that no one else knows. Changing the subject, he asks about the worm.

Doon goes and fetches a box from his room and he and Doon’s father peer into it. It contains a small, green worm with stubby legs and some cabbage leaves. Doon has always loved bugs and keeps a notebook of drawings and observations of bugs he finds. Most, like moths and spiders, die within a few days of capture, but this worm seems to be thriving. Doon shares the observations he’s made about the worm with his father, and his father suggests that Doon might find more interesting bugs in the Pipeworks. Doon agrees, but thinks that he can’t just look for bugs when they are living in a state of emergency.