Uglies: Symbols | SparkNotes

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

Tally's Scar

Tally’s scar is a symbol of her friendship with Peris, as well as her sense of loyalty and integrity. Before Peris’ surgery, Tally and Peris each cut their hands to pledge their loyalty and friendship to one another. When Tally sneaks into Pretty Town to see Peris after his surgery, she’s sad and disappointed to discover his scar was removed during surgery. Tally feels she’s lost her connection to him. Their bond has been figuratively erased, but also literally since the surgery has also wiped Peris’ brain clean. As long as Tally’s scar remains, however, her bond to Peris remains. She remembers she promised him she wouldn’t do anything to threaten her chances of getting the surgery, making sure they could reunite in Pretty Town, so she declines Shay’s invite to escape to the Smoke. Later, Tally continues to use her scarred hand to make pledges to others. She uses it to pledge to Shay that she won’t tell anyone about David. Tally’s ugliness, her scarred hand, becomes a symbol for one of the qualities that make her human—a sense of loyalty.

White Tiger Orchids

The white tiger orchids that spread wildly throughout the landscape outside of the city become a symbol in the novel for the negative effects of technology and the dangers that beauty poses to the society. The Rusties engineered a highly-durable species of white tiger orchid that ended up destroying everything in its path, creating a monoculture and nutrient-lacking soil where nothing lives. Their beauty distracts from the dangers they pose to the environment, similar to the way the uniform beauty of the Pretties poses to humanity’s diversity and individuality. The white tiger orchid chokes everything in its path to propagate itself. Tally feels like a white orchid among the Smokies when she realizes how much of a threat she poses to them. It is her self-interest that drives her to betray them, much like the white orchids to the soil and species around them.

Rusty Ruins

The Rusty Ruins in the book are a reminder of the fragile nature of civilizations. Tally’s city goes to great lengths to preserve the ruins to keep them a “lesson,” a reminder of the Rusties’ overdependence on oil, and excessive clear-cutting of forests. To Tally’s society, the Rusty Era, suggestive of modern-day society, was full of follies. When a bacterium was invented that infected and caused the oil the civilization so heavily depended on to burn, the whole city literally went up in flames. Cars were left everywhere as people fled, serving as a reminder of their civilization’s quick collapse. Tally’s civilization, however, arguably is equally fragile. Even though her civilization is more environmentally conscious, eschewing the clear-cutting of forests and the use of animals for clothing, it’s still heavily dependent on technology. Without hoverboards or the metal that ensures their operation, their society’s transportation system would collapse. All civilizations, the book suggests, have their fatal weaknesses.

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