In The City of Ember, irony occurs all throughout the novel. One such instance is when Lina and Doon discover the mayor’s secret storeroom in the Pipeworks: “‘The mayor has a secret treasure room in the Pipeworks’” (158). Doon had been curious and wondered if this room he found deep within the Pipeworks might be a way out and brought Lina with him to investigate. Shocked when Lina remembers the message she had given to the mayor from Looper, the pair then figure out that Looper was secretly bringing supplies to the mayor and keeping some for himself. This is where the irony comes into play. As the mayor of the City of Ember, one would think that Mayor Cole’s priority would be the people and their …show more content…
While a good mayor would take action and do his best to alleviate these threats, even if it means having to have less themselves, Mayor Cole does the exact opposite. Instead of being the self-sacrificing and protecting leader that the people would expect him to be, Mayor Cole decides to save himself first. This selfish and greedy mayor cares only about himself and his stomach, and has no regard whatsoever for his people. While he and Looper are all stocked up on supplies, the rest of the city is struggling to pull together basic necessities of life to keep alive. Without even the most basic supplies, like food and clothing, the people of Ember are suffering. Because of their mayor’s greed and absolute disregard for the people he is supposed to helping and leading in their time of need, the people are panicking all over the city. With a government as corrupt as the one in Ember, author DuPrau is making her statement in that one cannot rely upon a …show more content…
One instance when this is demonstrated is when citizens are forbidden to love, Jonas and The Giver demonstrate repeatedly how important love is to everyone. The Giver demonstrates love when he declares, “‘You can understand, then, that that’s what I felt for Rosemary… I loved her… I feel it for you, too…’” (177). The Giver and Jonas are the only ones who truly understand the meaning of love, and know through their shared memories that a family is not an actual family without love, and that the world is a cruel place if one does not have any loved ones, like The Giver and Jonas do. For The Giver, it was Rosemary and Jonas, while for Jonas, it was for Gabriel, Fiona, Asher, and The Giver. Jonas feels that love makes everything seem more complete, which he realizes after The Giver gives him his favorite memory, of a loving family celebrating a holiday, Christmas. These feelings of love and shared memories allow Jonas and The Giver to be selfless, and to sacrifice themselves to save the others in the entire community, thus creating the utopian society the Elders were hoping for all along. But, this is not the utopia the Elders had imagined for themselves. This utopian world is one of love. A world does not become utopian because of the lack of love, as the lack of love only makes the world imperfect. A world without love or emotion means the people follow orders blindly and without thought, which can be very