45 pages • 1 hour read
Scott ReintgenNyxia
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Biblical Allusions
Biblical allusions are a motif in Nyxia and demonstrate The Dangers of Ambition. The Genesis 11 space vessel is named after the 11th chapter in the Book of Genesis, which tells the story of the Tower of Babel; Babel Communications and the Tower Space Station get their names from this story as well. In the story of the Tower of Babel, humanity uses its ability to speak one unified language to work together and build a tall tower that will reach up to the heavens. To check the people’s hubris, God causes them to speak multiple languages so that they can no longer understand one another. The tower is never completed, and the people scatter across the globe. In the story of Babel, the people’s ambition to build their own way into heaven leads to great division. Similarly, in the novel, Babel Communications’ nyxia mining for profit has led to division and disaster.
Babel Communications has named the planet it is mining Eden, which is a biblical allusion to the Garden of Eden. In Genesis, Eden is a perfect paradise where people live in harmony with God and nature until their ambition causes corruption to creep in. Babel Communications’ naming of the planet is an example of dramatic irony and foreshadowing; the Garden of Eden was ultimately corrupted by human greed and ambition, and the planet of Eden will likely suffer a similar fate.
Emmett’s Key
Emmett’s key is a symbol that represents his family’s generational struggle for freedom. The key is a family heirloom. It was crafted by a blacksmith in the North to fit into and open the shackles of Emmett’s great-great-great grandmother, a fugitive from enslavement in the American South. Emmett’s father gifts him the key the day Emmett leaves for Eden, and Emmett is moved by this gesture: “My father holds out a brass key, and my heart stops […] I turn it over and over and think about all the Atwaters who have held this key […] Break the chains, the key cries” (18).
Emmett’s family is experiencing difficult times. His father’s factory job doesn’t pay enough to support the family financially, leaving them without medical care for Emmett’s mother’s cancer. The family has been stuck in a multigenerational cycle of poverty. By giving Emmett the key, his father signifies that Emmett is now the guardian of their freedom; the family believes that Emmett’s actions will finally deliver the family true (financial) independence. During the final phone call that Emmett has with his parents from aboard the Genesis 11, his father tells him to bury the key on Eden “as a sign […] that [they]’re starting new lives.” (327); his father believes that by winning a spot to Eden, Emmett has managed to pull the family out of their troubles. At the end of Nyxia, Emmett is traveling to Eden with the key, but the reader doesn’t know if he will land safely.
Nyxia
Nyxia, the powerful substance from Eden, symbolizes The Dangers of Ambition. At the start of the novel, the competitors learn to manipulate nyxia into objects, including weapons. If the competitors manipulate small amounts of nyxia, there seem to be no consequences, but the larger the substance, the more it pushes back. When Defoe tells the competitors to manipulate larger quantities, the substance takes over the competitors’ bodies, causing them to black out. When Isadora and Roathy corner Emmett on the Tower Space Station, Emmett’s nyxia takes over his actions. This serves as a warning that unchecked ambition also has the power to make people strangers to themselves as they are overpowered by their will to succeed, compromising their humanity and ethics. Defoe, the architect of this competition, claims that he has mastered larger quantities of the substance, but his lack of a conscience is a sign that the nyxia likely controls him.
Humans Exploiting Nature
Humans exploiting nature is a recurring motif in Nyxia, demonstrating how ecological misuse and human ambition can lead to disaster. Babel Communications’ motivation for the mission to Eden is to mine nyxia, and though the novel doesn’t portray the ecological consequences of this project, it does show that the mining has killed many people and implies that it may kill more of the competitors in the future. Babel’s perspective is that nature exists to be controlled and manipulated for human gain. Emmett is from Detroit, a city in the United States that was at the center of industrial production in the early 20th century. As a result of this rapid industrialization, Detroit suffered from poor housing, poor health outcomes, and rapid ecological decline. The author uses the example of Detroit to foreshadow how nyxia mining may affect Eden.
