"THE MAZE RUNNER"


"THE MAZE RUNNER"
ANALYSIS
Thomas's exposure to the Glade comes alongside our own. As he learns more about this strange place and the children who inhabit it, we do as well, solidifying ourconnection to the protagonist. We wish to learn as much about the Glade as Thomas does. Thomas's amnesia is a common trope in literature and other media. Here, it serves to heighten the mystery andprovides Thomas with a motivation: to escape and learn about who he is and where he came from. This instant victimization of Thomas additionally allows the reader to sympathize and identify with him. Thereader wishes to obtain the same answers that Thomas does.
The Glade is a sort of penitentiary, surrounded on all sides by high walls. Dashner reverses the intention of a penitentiary. Traditionally,they are designed to keep dangerous individuals separated from a safer, just society. In the novel, the Glade serves to keep a safe community protected from a hostile outside world.
It is thiscommunity which is perhaps of greatest interest. First, the teenagers that Thomas encounters are on their own, with no supervisory adult figure in the Glade. Alby, the makeshift leader, has to assume thisposition. Second, all of the Gladers are boys. No females are present. This reiterates the prison-like nature of the Gladers' situation. In prisons, the genders are generally kept separated. However,it also reflects one of two other works in literature that Dashner has cited as influences on this novel: The Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Dashner also cites Ender's Game by Orson Scott Cardas an influence. Like Golding's book, the characters are all young boys on the verge of teenage-dom. In that novel the boys are stranded on an island and must work together to establish order in theircommunity so that they may survive and be rescued.
Dashner appears to use this as a plot point to establish a theme in his novel. The Gladers must work together to preserve order in the Glade so...