Previous Next

Chapters 16–20

Summary: Chapter 16: Infiltrator

Tally is brought to Special Circumstances. After Dr. Cable produces a copy of the secret note Shay gave to her, Tally realizes Special Circumstances has more power than she thought. Dr. Cable tells Tally that since she is the only one who can decode the note, she’ll have to go to the Smoke, alone. Tally is scared about living in the wilderness alone for several days. Dr. Cable loads Tally up with survival gear and a heart-shaped locket that is activated by an eye scan to use when she arrives at the Smoke. Tally has second thoughts about going, but when Dr. Cable projects an image of Tally’s ugly face onto the wall, Tally gives in. She doesn’t want to remain ugly for the rest of her life.

Part II: The Smoke

Summary: Chapter 17: Leaving

Tally has to make up some time getting to the Smoke since she’s leaving four days after her birthday, which will seem odd to Shay and other people in the Smoke. The first line instructs Tally to take the roller coaster straight past the gap in the tracks. The second line says that she has to keep going to find another track that’s long and flat. Tally is confused, not understanding what type of roller coaster would be flat. She then comes upon a set of railroad tracks and realizes these are the tracks Shay must be referring to. She’s next instructed to follow the tracks towards the ocean. Tally is encouraged by how easy it is to find her way, and that she’s making good time. 

Summary: Chapter 18: SpagBol

Tally follows the next line in Shay’s note that tells her to watch for breaks. Tally doesn’t understand what this means, so she keeps going until she crosses a crumbling bridge and almost falls into a deep chasm. Tally takes a break to eat. She finds dehydrated food packets in her bag marked “SpagBol.” Tally reviews the next part of the note which instructs her to make the “worst mistake” at the “second break.” Deciding she has had enough adventure for the day, Tally lays out her solar-powered hoverboard to charge in the sunlight and lays out her sleeping bag to go to sleep. While preparing to camp, she discovers all of her food packets are marked SpagBol, which means all she’ll be eating is spaghetti Bolognese for the rest of her trip.

Summary: Chapter 19: The Worst Mistake

Tally dreams that she is flying over the ocean without a hoverboard until she falls and drowns. Her next clue is to make the worst mistake. Heading out, she discovers a second break in the bridge and decides to fall into the chasm, hoping that this mistake will be corrected by iron deposits in the cliffs below. She goes too far, and the hoverboard loses power. She begins to freefall but is saved when the iron deposits in the water at the foot of the cliffs save her. This is what Shay meant by the worst mistake. Tally’s next instruction is to continue for four days. On the third day, she takes a bath in the river which is ice cold. She hears something in the distance.

Summary: Chapter 20: The Side You Despise

The noise Tally hears turns out to be a noisy flying machine with a spinning disk. It’s a helicopter, which Tally doesn’t recognize because it’s from the Rusty Era. The helicopter briefly hovers over Tally, tearing up her sleeping bag. Tally keeps going, coming to a fork in the river. The note tells Tally to take the “side you despise.” Tally is puzzled at first but realizes it refers to the right side of her face Tally told Shay she hated. She takes the right fork which leads to a field of beautiful white flowers. Shay’s note says to look for fire-bug eyes in the flowers. Tally doesn’t know what this means so she decides to take a nap. When she wakes up there’s a fire ripping through the fields.

Analysis: Chapters 16–20

Once again, the appearance of the outside world shifts with Tally’s internal state. As Special Circumstances comes to pick her up after she agrees to help them infiltrate David’s camp, Tally, now emotionally and physically exhausted, perceives these Pretties as even more unnatural than before. Tally’s eyes, however tired, are crystal clear. The Special Pretties do have an unearthly power—a carefully engineered one. Tally’s perceptions are getting sharper the more she experiences she has. 

Dr. Cable engages Tally by making her state that she’s come of her own free will, which is a farce since later Dr. Cable blackmails and tortures Tally with a photo of herself to remind her how she’ll look ugly forever if she doesn’t comply. Their interaction underlines a major aspect of Tally’s society and a commentary on dystopias in general: They appear to allow people more freedom with technological advances, but in reality, people’s choices often become more limited and stifled. As Dr. Cable explains things, the city benefits by allowing its youth space and freedom to play tricks such as bungee jumping and have fun, which in turn develops their creativity and independence. Yet Tally is beginning to grow tired of these types of tricks the cities tolerate Uglies and Pretties playing. She longs to grow out of this behavior, as when she tells Shay life is more than bungee jumping and scaring Littlies. Though she doesn’t realize it yet, Tally senses there are larger goals to have and games to play, in the form of self-exploration and the pushing of one’s own internal boundaries, rather than society’s externally imposed ones.

Dr. Cable may not fully realize it, but sending Tally alone into the wilderness to infiltrate the Smoke will ironically give Tally the strength to consider abandoning her mission later. With each day that Tally spends in the wilderness, she is faced with challenges that almost make her want to give up, but she surpasses. Tally is given a set of coded instructions from Shay that prove difficult to interpret in some cases. For example, when Shay’s riddle instructs Tally to make the worst mistake, Tally is clueless about what it means. She’s even more terrified when she suspects what it actually means because of a dream she has the night before about free falling into a chasm, which turns out to be correct. Out in the wild, Tally’s link to her subconscious is getting stronger and more prophetic, symbolizing the growing connection she’s fostering to herself and her resourcefulness.

When Tally reaches the next clue in Shay’s instructions, which instructs her to take the side she hates, Tally reaches one of her many symbolic choices in the novel. She’s come to a fork in a river. Tally must interpret what Shay means by taking the side she despises. She recalls that she told Shay she hated the right side of her face, which she thought was uglier than the left side. She realizes Shay must mean she must take the right side of the fork in the river. By choosing the right fork, Tally is also choosing her flaws, and accepting her ugliness, metaphorically. Furthermore, the right tributary of the river is smaller, symbolizing how it’s likely less followed than the left. Tally is truly heading into less-charted territory, both within herself and in the landscape. With each challenge Tally faces in completing Shay’s map, she’s getting more in touch with herself, facing her insecurities, and growing a deep sense of self-reliance.

The challenges Tally faces are also allowing a deeper sense of joy in the outside world. Before, she criticized Shay for choosing to live like an “animal” rather than accept the glamorous, secure life their society is offering to them. Tally finds it foolish to eschew civilized life for life in the wild. But now, she is finding that there are more and more surprises, joys, and thrills in the natural world. Tally finds that the city looks smaller from the mountains, where there is more variety, color, sights, and sounds.

Previous section Chapters 11–15 Next section Chapters 21–25

Take a Study Break