All that remained was the curiosity of it all. The wonder of the outside world beyond the veil of lies.
After Holston begins to doubt the screen's authenticity, he is consumed by a need to know firsthand what exists outside of the silo. In this quotation, the "veil of lies" refers to the many false narratives the silo's leadership promulgates, such as the cause of the uprisings. Like the blurred screen, a veil obscures images from view, enhancing the desire to see what lies behind it. The silo's false narratives make it nearly impossible for Holston to discern which parts of his world are true and which parts are false; thus, he becomes curious and skeptical to the point where he risks death just to uncover the truth for himself.
"Some of the others are nervous that you might not do the cleaning because you aren’t saying you won’t.”
The silo relies on the screen's image to maintain order and well-being, as it is the silo's one view of the outside world. Residents value this connection so much that they routinely sacrifice human lives to maintain the screen's clarity. This quotation introduces the question that haunts Holston: why do the condemned go through with the cleaning? Most of those condemned to cleaning assert that they will not perform the cleaning to spite the silo; however, they all do. Since Holston accepts his death without complaint, the rest of the silo fears he will not perform the cleaning.
“No good coming from the truth? Knowing the truth is always good.”
This quotation is ironic and foreshadows Allison's death. A thorough researcher, Allison is motivated by a powerful commitment to discovering the truth of the silo's history and the world beyond the silo. When Holston discourages Allison from investigating the uprisings further, she asserts that "knowing the truth is always good." However, Allison's desire to know the truth compels her to undergo the cleaning, resulting in her death and, indirectly, Holston's death. "Knowing the truth" by going to the earth's surface satisfied Allison and Holston's curiosity, yet ended their lives.
“If that hill is there and it’s green, we’ll go over it together.”
After uncovering a computer program used to manipulate images, Allison concludes that the earth's surface is habitable, and that the silo's IT department has made it appear barren to discourage uprisings. In this quotation, Allison references a distant hill visible in the silo's view, which symbolizes the truth of the world beyond the silo. Later, the hill symbolizes death.
This quotation is both ironic and prescient. Due to the manipulated images inside their helmets, the hill appears "green" to Allison and Holston, which compels them to "go over it" to find what lies beyond. However, Allison and Holston both die on the hill, Holston holding her body, "going over it together."
He had thought he would remain in the silo forever, his nutrients going as the nutrients of his parents had—into the soil of the eighth floor dirt farm.
Before Allison's discovery, Holston readily accepted the silo's version of the truth. Holston's family lived in the silo for generations, presumably never wanting to go outside. This quotation evidences how the silo uses human life to ensure its survival; just as the condemned are sacrificed to maintain the view, the bodies of silo citizens are recycled to benefit the living.
And for him, it wasn’t the raw anger he imagined many might have cleaned with, it wasn’t the knowledge that they in the silo were condemned and the condemned set free, it wasn’t the feeling of betrayal that guided the wool in his hand in small, circular motions. It was pity. It was raw pity and unconstrained joy.
This quotation answers the story's central mystery: why the condemned decide to perform the cleaning for the benefit of those who condemned them. When Holston reaches the earth's surface, he finally understands that the condemned choose to perform the cleaning because they are both compelled by tradition and free to choose their own fate. Believing that the world is survivable, Holston pities the "inside people" who are too ignorant or afraid to question the nature of their reality.
"Most people doubted those colors in the books, just as they doubted purple elephants and pink birds to have ever existed, but Holston felt that they were truer than the scene before him."
The only books left in the silo are brightly illustrated children's books. The fantastical images in these books, the only artifacts of the previous world, confuse the silo's curated narrative about the surface world. Since the silo's residents are only provided a single view of the outside world, which seems incompatible with the illustrations in children's books, they willingly accept the silo's version of the truth. The books contain impossible images, so the silo's citizens dismiss the entire book as false.
