Mortal Engines

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2001

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-8

Part 1, Chapters 9-12

Part 1, Chapters 13-16

Part 1, Chapters 17-18

Part 1, Chapters 19-23

Part 2, Chapters 24-26

Part 2, Chapters 27-30

Part 2, Chapters 31-34

Part 2, Chapters 35-37

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Part 2, Chapters 35-37Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapter 35 Summary: “The Cathedral”

As Tom watches the 13th Floor Elevator crash and sees the fire spread, he realizes how many innocent people he’s killed. To distract from his guilt, he circles back toward London to find Hester, determined that she won’t be among those lost. Meanwhile, Katherine makes her way to the cathedral, where Engineers run back and forth through MEDUSA’s jumble of wires and supports. Crome, Valentine, and a group of Engineers stand at MEDUSA’s power hub—but even after everything her father has done, Katherine can’t bring herself to use the bomb while he’s so close to MEDUSA.

Before Crome can fire the weapon, the stalkers arrive with Hester in tow, dumping her on the platform before Valentine. He unsheathes his sword to finish Hester, but Katherine darts from hiding and into the blade’s path. She staggers and falls onto MEDUSA’s keyboard, inadvertently entering the wrong security code.

The Engineers scramble to keep MEDUSA from exploding while Valentine tries to stop Katherine’s bleeding. Hester watches, numb. She spent years hunting Valentine, but seeing him grief-stricken over Katherine, Hester’s anger “[does]n't seem to matter now” (363). The Jenny Haniver appears above the city, and Hester remembers the medical bay on board. She and Valentine carry Katherine toward the roof, ignoring Crome’s frantic cries for help.

Part 2, Chapter 36 Summary: “The Shadow of Bones”

Hester climbs onto MEDUSA, frantically waving to get Tom’s attention. Tom finally sees her and steers close enough for Hester to jump on board. She reaches back for Valentine, but he has fallen to his knees, cradling Katherine’s dead body. Valentine yells for Tom and Hester to get away. They steer the Jenny Haniver into the night as, far below, London’s engines grind to a stop. The stalkers attacking the museum likewise stop working, and when MEDUSA explodes, Valentine feels a rush of fire and light that is “the shadows of their bones scattering into the brilliant sky” (369).

Part 2, Chapter 37 Summary: “The Bird Roads”

Tom and Hester watch from the Jenny Haniver as London implodes on itself. Hours pass before the flames burn out, and Tom knows without searching that no one survived. He and Hester decide to return to the Black Island to repair the ship and then take the Bird Road through the mountains somewhere far away from all that happened. They’ve lost everything, but Hester says it doesn’t matter: “[W]e’re alive, and together, and we’re going to be all right” (373).

Part 2, Chapters 35-37 Analysis

The final chapters illustrate the danger of striving toward power, emphatically highlighting the theme Losing What We Love Most Due to the Quest for Power. Crome has spent years rebuilding MEDUSA with the intention to use it for London’s expansion. He gives no thought to the threat MEDUSA might pose to his city until something goes wrong that he can’t fix. The exact sequence of events in Chapter 35 might be a rare occurrence, but rarity doesn’t matter when the events have caused a negative outcome. London’s end is ironic because it’s destroyed by the very thing that was supposed to save it and allow it to grow.

Chapter 36 finalizes Valentine and Katherine’s arcs, illustrating the theme Inner Beauty as True Beauty. Katherine makes the ultimate sacrifice to save Hester even though she doesn’t know the other girl. Valentine’s grief for Katherine is perhaps the only thing that could have steered Hester from her mission. Hester knows what it’s like to lose the people she loves most, and watching Valentine suffer makes her unable to kill him because he’s suffering more watching Katherine die than he would from losing his own life. The title of Chapter 36 alludes to the imagery of how London’s people die. Their bones are obliterated in MEDUSA’s blast, and the shadow of their bones, meaning the idea of people, is all that remains.

Tom and Hester are the novel’s only major characters who survive. Valentine sacrifices himself to let them get away, which allows them to be just far enough from the blast zone and MEDUSA’s radiation. Before the final explosion, the Stalkers and other technology aboard London stop working as a result of MEDUSA’s increasing power and radioactive wavelengths. It’s possible that because MEDUSA is wired through London, everything aboard the city was affected, but the Jenny Haniver escaped because it didn’t receive the same level of radiation. Hester’s final words set up the sequel, which departs greatly from Mortal Engines due to the destruction of most major players and locations in the first book.