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Chapters 41–45

Summary: Chapter 41: Familiar Sights

A hurricane strands David and Tally for a few days. While they are waiting for the storm to pass, they talk to each other about their upbringing and early lives. At one point they fight, and David leaves the tent for a bit. They continue after the storm passes, to the Rusty Ruins. Tally isn’t as scared to be alone in the buildings. She remarks how the city sprays the ruins to keep them preserved so they can be a lesson for young kids, who they take there on field trips. Finally, they arrive in the city. Tally, now acting as the guide, leads them to the Special Circumstances building. The building is protected by a fence rigged with sensor wires. Tally comes up with a plan: They’ll bungee jump onto the roof from their boards. 

Summary: Chapter 42: Accomplices

Tally brings David to the art school where she and Shay played a prank on the Littlies to steal bungee jackets. David notices safety flares off in the distance and realizes more Uglies are beckoning him. They head to the Ruins to meet them and see it’s Sussy, An, and Dex. Tally doesn’t want them to know that the Smoke is destroyed because she doesn’t want to deter other hopefuls. She tells the kids that the Smoke moves periodically to protect its location. David is sad to hear the Smoke is gone but realizes there will always be more recruits. She asks for the Uglies’ help, promising they’ll be the first to know its new location. Tally plans for them to help distract the Specials. 

Summary: Chapter 43: Over the Edge

David and Tally watch for the Uglies’ signal. The words “The Smoke Lives” suddenly appear in the sky, made of sparklers and fireworks, engaging Special Circumstances, who race towards the Uglies. Now that the Special Circumstances building is free of guards, David and Tally head over. They jump over the sensor fence with their hoverboards and free-fall onto the roof of the building with their bungee jackets. Tally overshoots the building and catches a rain gutter to hold onto the side of the building. David helps her over the edge, amazed people in Uglyville bungee jump for fun. Tally, liking the attention, admits bungee jumping is just an old trick the Uglies use to pass time before they become anesthetized to reality.

Summary: Chapter 44: Inside

Tally and David find a hovercar hatch on the roof which they enter then jam shut with some high-tech nano glue. They both free-fall into the shaft using their bungee jackets. Tally uses a powerjack to pry open the elevator door to make their way into the building. They head towards the basement where David assumes Dr. Cable hides her prisoners. Just as they enter the corridor of the basement, they run into Dr. Cable. Tally distracts her by calling out her name and saying she wants to turn herself in while David knocks her out with the powerjack from behind. Suddenly, Tally hears another female voice, coming from not far behind. It’s a Pretty. Tally realizes, with horror, it’s Shay. 

Summary: Chapter 45: Rescue

Tally is surprised that Shay seems happy to see her. Shay says she was forced into the operation by Dr. Cable but is relieved about it. Shay is drunk because she’s just come from a party. Tally tears up, realizing how she betrayed Shay. Shay sees Dr. Cable’s body on the ground and makes fun of Tally and David for always finding trouble. She says she’ll help them because while she may be pretty, she still likes to have fun. When Shay takes Tally aside and says she’ll keep Tally’s ugly secret, Tally realizes Shay knows about Dr. Cable. While she and Tally talk, David uses the powerjack to free the other Smokies from their prison. Maddy, Croy, Astrix, and Ryde are among them. David asks his mother where his father is. Maddy tells him they can’t help Az now because he’s dead. 

Analysis: Chapters 41–45

When the hurricane strands David and Tally, Tally once again is exposed to nature’s raw and savage power. She’d never felt the full force of a hurricane except from inside the safe buildings of her childhood city. Similarly, she’d never felt the full force of her bravery, self-reliance, and courage, until she was outside of these solid structures. Nature, a force that runs both within and outside of her, in the landscape, is something vital, powerful, and as effective as a hurricane knocking down trees and pushing people back and making them pause, however much they’d rather still be moving.

The time Tally and David are forced to stay inside their tent as they wait for the hurricane to pass also gives them a chance to deepen their relationship and romance. They spend the entire day sharing everything about themselves, including details about their childhood. By the end of the day, Tally feels she understands David as a person better than anyone else she’d ever known. Then, on the third day, they fight and David escapes outside to stand alone in the wind for a while. Like any couple, they have their squabbles and are learning to navigate the relationship. Back in Pretty Town, no one fights; they just party. Since their brains are engineered to be acquiescent and agreeable, they are never given a chance to develop complicated, real bonds with others, an essential part of life. Such bonds are often formed when people communicate to resolve issues.

Furthermore, when the hurricane strands them, Tally sees more of the ruins and gazes upon the full impact of what she’s learned about the Rusty civilization, as well as her own. Her city only protects a small portion of the Rusty Ruins; the wreckage of many more cities lies outside of them. She reflects on how her society preserved these particular ruins solely for field trips, freezing them in time with a special spray. Tally tells David she realizes now they preserved the ruins as a lesson and a warning about the Rusties’ overdependence on oil, excessive use of natural materials, and inequalities based on beauty, where people were judged based on their looks and unfairly shut out of opportunities because of them. Tally realizes that this place represents her city in a way as nothing remains of the original place. Tally feels that everything in her society is exploited towards some preconceived end. The ruins no longer seem large and scary to Tally as well; they seem smaller. As she looks out upon them, her perception of them has changed, because she has changed, highlighting a major theme in the book about beauty and its varying with perception.

David himself reaches new conclusions as a result of their adventure as well. David, who has never been inside a city’s walls, has much to learn and realize as well, for all his awareness and knowledge facilitated by his parents. When David meets new potential Smoke recruits in Chapter 42, “Accomplices,” Sussy, An, and Dex, he is first forlorn listening to Tally have to tell them they can’t go to the Smoke because it’s being moved. The truth is that it has been destroyed, and David is having a hard time coming to terms with the fact. But later, in Chapter 43, “Over the Edge,” when he sees the Uglies’ smoke signals splaying across the skyline in sparklers and fireworks—“The Smoke Lives”—he realizes a very important concept: The Smoke will always survive, as long as the revolutionary spirit does.

The message, symbolically, is created with fire, a common symbol for the human spirit. Fire is used by Uglies to signal David when they want to run away to the Smoke, and it’s used by the Specials to burn down the camp, and the library, which houses books that tell the truth about the Rusties’ civilization. Knowledge is dangerous, and the Specials know this. Fire is also a common symbol of divine knowledge, especially technology, that isn’t necessarily meant for humans. When in human hands, fire and technology can both help humans reach new goals, but both can also destroy if not handled without the counterbalance of wisdom.

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