The Diamond Of Darkhold

“‘Second thing is,’ the roamer was saying, jabbing a finger at the sky, ‘a new star is up there. It moves, is the odd thing about it. I’ve seen it myself.’”

The roamer’s arrival is a highly anticipated event in Sparks; roamers symbolize connection—even when their comments are vague or unsettling—because they are the only souls who venture from settlement to settlement. Though the roamer has little merchandise of value for the people of Sparks, she is important because she shares news of wolves and the moving star. Her description of the “new” star is significant as a plant for a plot detail that will evolve and return until its mystery is solved (it is an unmanned spacecraft from a distant planet).

“Here in Sparks, Edward had put himself in charge of the huge disorderly pile of books that had accumulated over the years in the back room of the Ark. Little by little, with Doon’s help, he was putting these books in order so that people could actually find them and read them.”

Books are a motif in the novel; they symbolize knowledge and curiosity. Though many in Sparks, including those from Ember, are more concerned with survival than reading, Edward represents the importance of literacy and research as well as open-mindedness. That Doon helps him suggests The Importance of Cooperation in Problem Solving. Books are stored in the Ark; this allusion refers to the ark of Noah in the Christian Bible, a massive boat which functioned as a safe haven for family members and animals until the great flood passed. That books are stored along with food in Sparks’s Ark hints at the coming realization of their importance.

“It was unmistakable. A dim, pulsing orange light shone from somewhere in the heart of the city.”

Juxtaposed against their relatively easy journey back to Ember, Lina and Doon meet an insurmountable challenge at the cliff’s edge inside the crevice. This chapter hook increases the mystery and suspense with an unexpected light in a dead city; the imagery includes a metaphor (“heart” for the city’s center) and sensory imagery with “pulsing orange light.”

“In Ember, a jewel had been anything a person used as decoration for the body. Some people had worn bits of polished glass on strings around their necks, or bracelets of shiny metal. […] No one got very excited about it.”

These calm thoughts in Lina’s interior monologue highlight the ironic juxtaposition between the past and the present; Lina’s world is one in which jewels and jewelry have lost their value. Visual imagery captures the idea of decorating oneself with pieces of whatever one finds attractive. This focus on jewels also draws the reader’s attention to the wordplay with “joule” (a unit of measurement of energy), a word Doon and Lina do not know and a plant for determining the mystery of the master builder’s gift.

“She gazed at the empty spot, where beside a door was a bench with a couple of red jackets flung across it. A wave of sadness washed over her, and she looked away and hurried on up the street toward the tiny glow of Doon’s candle far ahead.”

Lina’s internal conflict develops upon her return to Ember: She mourns her dark city and painfully recalls her messenger job. The discarded red coats reflect the rushed, harsh changes the Emberites experienced in leaving their city. Metaphorical, idiomatic language (“wave of sadness”) is used to convey Lina’s grief for times gone by.

“Don’t hurt him, Yorick, you brainless bucket.”

Washton Trogg tends to call out his son’s brash or ignorant comments, which is highly ironic considering how much Washton does not know. For example, he believes he renamed his son after the important ancient city of New York, but as he cannot read, he does not know that he got the spelling incorrect. Readers may first guess that Trogg named his son after a famous Shakespearean Yorick; Hamlet says, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio” (Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1) when he stumbles upon the old jester’s skull in the graveyard. If so, it is ironic that the real origin behind the character’s name is his illiterate father’s misunderstanding.

“He was filled with amazement and sorrow, as if the city were indeed a living thing on its way to death.”

Doon does not share Lina’s complicated emotions about Ember until he is captured by the Troggs and learns that Ember’s generator still occasionally powers up. Doon has spent his months since the egress learning about the outside world; he typically does not experience sadness for their old way of life as Lina does. In this moment, however, Doon feels deep emotion and grieves for his old home. The metaphor evokes reader emotion by personifying Ember.

“There’s buried treasure in the ancient city,

Remember, remember, from times of old,

What’s hidden will come to light again,

A diamond jewel more precious than gold.”

Lina hears Maggs sing this bit of old song when she comes to Sparks as a roamer and again when she makes her last food delivery to the Troggs. The song is a clue about the diamond’s purpose, metaphorically comparing its value to gold and treasure. Lina’s reaction is significant in plot development as well: She recalls a similar song from her experience stowing away on a trip the previous summer with Caleb in The People of Sparks. In that subplot, Caleb theorizes that an old song about treasure points to an ancient, powerful city, but the city is in ruins when they arrive. After abandoning Caleb, Lina and Maddy hear a roamer sing “‘There’s buried treasure in the ancient city. / Remember, remember from times of old. / What’s hidden will come to light again. / It’s far more precious than diamonds and gold….’ (The People of Sparks, 249-50). Lina figured the “treasure” meant the Emberites, but the subtle change in the last line of Maggs’s song makes her wonder about new meanings.

“Doon knew that people ate animals. They never had in Ember; there were no animals there. But in Sparks, in the winter, his father had now and then brought home from the market some chunks of chewy salty stuff that was called meat.”

The novel broaches the impact of human progress on the natural world. Doon has guilt and misgivings about eating animals, and the smell of it makes him sick to his stomach; however, after having had only meat jerky in Sparks and no meat at all in Ember, he eats the roast lamb without many qualms, symbolizing how some humans exert dominance and control over the natural world.

“In Trogg’s big grubby hands, it looked all wrong. Doon has an urge to take it from him—not to steal it, but to rescue it. He reached out to touch it.”

The Troggs complicate Doon’s quest in many ways: They capture him, force his separation from Lina, and compel his sympathy for Ember with their disrespectful acts there. More notably, Doon realizes that Washton Trogg has already acquired his quest’s objective—the invention left behind by the Builders. The sight of the invention, a bluish diamond, mesmerizes Doon; his desire to protect the invention exemplify The Legacy and Impact of Ancient Technologies.

“It seemed to Kenny that everything in the Ancient World had to do with electricity. Whenever he asked how something had worked—cars, lamps, refrigerators, telescopes, the answer was always electricity. But then when he asked what electricity was, and where it came from, and why they couldn’t get it now, Ms. Buloware never knew the answer.”

Through a switch to Kenny’s third-person limited viewpoint, the author focuses on electricity and its mysterious origins and purposes, a nod to the legacy and impact of ancient technologies. That not even a teacher can make sense of this ancient technology represents its awe-inspiring complexities; yet Kenny’s attitude is slightly dismissive as he reflects on topics of interest to him; he prefers nature as a subject and learns more from observation of the natural world, which exemplifies Self-sufficiency Through Knowledge of the Natural World.

“It’s terrible to burn a book. […] You never know what might be in it.”

Contributing to the motif of books, Lina verbalizes a key lesson in the novel about the worth of information, education, and curiosity. The Troggs and Maggs’s obliviousness symbolizes the opposite of learning; they are not only illiterate, but they are not interested in preserving what the printed word can teach, preferring instead to use books to start and keep fires going. Doon and Lina’s struggle stems from needed information in the Directions for Use having been burned; symbolically, the overarching conflict of the novel is one of knowledge versus ignorance.

“No more water would be pumped up into the city, and the lights were gone for good. Before too long, the Troggs would have to leave, which was as it should be. They didn’t belong in Ember. And yet Doon felt a swell of sorrow. He had killed his city. […] But Ember’s time was over.”

Metaphorical language (“killed his city”) and alliteration (“gone for good,” “swell of sorrow”) help convey Doon’s emotions after taking drastic action to stop the Troggs from desecrating Ember. Doon mourns his city’s final breath as he dismantles the generator, a symbol of the legacy and impact of ancient technologies. Making the painful decision shows Doon’s ability to see a higher purpose, proof of his coming of age in the latter half of the novel.

“But even after an hour of walking when the sun had dully risen and their feet were already starting to hurt from rubbing against their shoes, they saw no sign of anything moving anywhere in the landscape except, far off in the distance, some birds with motionless wings floating in circles in the sky.”

This chapter’s cap sums up the current status of the trio of rescuers; earlier that day, Kenny, Torren, and Lizzie are excited to find Lina and Doon and have an adventure in doing so, but shortly, they tire of the walk. The coasting birds far ahead foreshadow wolves, as the mention of vultures previously is associated with the presence of these predators.

“There was a split second when a needle of grief pierced him. Then he flung the diamond with all his might into the midst of the wolves.”

Doon demonstrates self-sacrifice in this moment. Thrilled and excited when Scawgo gifts him the diamond, Doon admires its facets once outside the cave; when he sees Lina threatened by wolves, however, he must give up his goal of learning this diamond’s mysteries, the legacy and impact of ancient technologies, and how it might save them all. A metaphor (“needle of grief”) conveys the sharp pain he feels in destroying the diamond. The action disheartens Doon, though he is grateful his friend is safe.

“Lina was worried by something in his voice—a sadness, a hopeless tone that wasn’t like him.”

Ironically, Lina and Doon are in the steel-lined vault (where the diamonds are hidden) when they experience their lowest moment, evidenced here by Lina’s concern for Doon’s uncharacteristic pessimism. After destroying the diamond, shutting off Ember’s power, hurting his ankle, and admitting the Directions for Use cannot be interpreted, Doon sees little recourse but to return to the struggle and sickness in Sparks; this moment represents the lowest point on his Hero’s Journey and shows the complexity and dimensionality of his character.

“This wasn’t turning out to be the thrilling adventure he had imagined.”

By shifting the viewpoint to an omniscient narration, the author achieves additional opportunities for characterization as Torren, Lizzie, and Kenny embark on their mission. Here, the narration reveals Torren’s inner reaction to the adventure he ironically sought for a long time. The viewpoint flows without a scene break to also convey inner thoughts from Kenny and Lizzie.

“And we thought, Why just one boat for all the people in the city?”

After Doon experiences his lowest moment in his character arc, reflection on his past successes and his inherent skill in thinking critically and flexibly prompt his epiphany: The Builders meant the first boat Doon and Lina found (in The City of Ember) to represent many others—enough for all of Ember to use in the egress, so perhaps they did the same with the diamond. The possibility of finding many more diamonds rekindles Doon’s hope.

“To the left, the word ‘Off’ was printed, and to the right, the word ‘On.’”

Ironic in its simplicity, the switch to activate the steel doors and reveal the collection of diamonds symbolizes a last step in Doon and Lina’s quest. Though modern readers likely utilize power switches many times daily, the words “On” and “Off” here remind readers that those in Ember and Sparks struggle without electricity. Though they have yet to determine the use of the diamonds, Doon and Lina’s joy in finding them exemplifies the legacy and impact of ancient technologies.

“But in the next few days, as they did one experiment after another and casually asked Ms. Buloware, the school teacher, for some word definitions, they began to understand. And once they understood, they made their plan.”

The author saves the revelation of the diamonds’ use and purpose until the scene when Doon and Lina, demonstrating the importance of cooperation in problem solving, share what they learn with the salvage volunteers. This increases suspense and dramatic value, as Doon can explain the operation of the diamonds in a speech to a crowd; simultaneously, using the indirect focus of the crowd heightens the importance of the diamonds. Astute readers, however, may use context clues in this passage and the final words in the Directions for Use, “… celestial source, perfectly pure, and for human purposes, infinite” (245), to determine that the diamonds work like solar batteries, exemplifying self-sufficiency through knowledge of the natural world.

“So Lina and Doon did not mention those moments of terror and danger. They kept that part of the story to themselves, like a dark stone that was the secret partner of the bright jewel they’d brought back.”

Telling the story of their quest is a significant step in Doon and Lina’s coming of age. Not only do they share their learned knowledge and show courage in speaking to adults, peers, and town leaders, but they also demonstrate maturity in withholding some parts of their story (the wolf attack, described here with a simile-metaphor combination). That Doon is concerned with the wolves’ wellbeing and wants to prevent any foolhardy hunting is a nod to the novel’s message on living in balance with nature; thus, it exemplifies self-sufficiency through knowledge of the natural world.

“It’s called e-lec-tricity.[…] Have you heard of it?”

Doon is a quiet, unassuming character throughout the series, but in the moment the Troggs see the lighted bulbs of Sparks, he cannot help but echo Washton Trogg’s own words back to him in self-satisfaction. This moment points to the legacy and impact of ancient technologies; it also adds to the motif of books, as Doon learned about electricity through study. The line when spoken by Doon represents truth and progress, juxtaposed against its use from Trogg, who spoke it ironically and ignorantly in Ember.

“Lina laughed. So did Doon. A look went between them, like a quick current of electricity.”

Just before sharing a view of the future, including the centuries and generations that follow, the author alludes to the first “spark” of romance between Lina and Doon five years after finding the diamonds. The moment highlights the significance of their shared history together, as Lina asks Doon’s help in piecing a torn message back together, which reminds them of their first quest to puzzle out the torn words of the Instructions for Egress.