maze runner essay
Jamison Nutting
Nov. 21, 2014
English 10 honors
Period 2
Word Count: 1052
Fear Within the Gladers In most dystopian novels, the main message says something about the human mind and experience. James Dashner’s The Maze Runner gives readers a new perspective on how emotion and fear can can be almost like a prison. In the novel, gladers, or people living in the glade, live in constant fear of what lies within the maze and themselves. When Thomas arrives to the maze, he begins to change the way gladers think and how fear controls them. In The Maze Runner, the main message is that fear can control people and keep them in hiding, however, through sacrifice and commitment people can escape from fear and change their lives. This is demonstrated through Thomas, as he helps the gladers take control of their own future by exempting fear and eventually escaping the one thing that controlled them; the maze.
The gladers have been running the maze for as long as they can remember, but because of their fear and lack of commitment they have not made any new discoveries and have accepted their state of living as their reality. In the beginning of the novel,
Thomas longs to be a runner. He is however shut down because the gladers have almost given up and are hopeless that Thomas could help. When talking to Thomas,
Newt says, “Everything we doour whole life, Greenie revolves around the maze.
Every lovin’ second of every lovin’ day we spend trying to fix something in honor of the maze, tryin’ to solve somethin’ that’s not shown us it has a bloody solution, ya know?”
(Dashner 38). In other words the runners have spent years trying to solve something that seems unsolvable. Instead of trying new things and sending everyone they can into the maze, the gladers have accepted that they'll never solve the maze. Also, because of fear of the grievers, the runners return back to the glade every night, worsening progress. After Thomas sees a
Nov. 21, 2014
English 10 honors
Period 2
Word Count: 1052
Fear Within the Gladers In most dystopian novels, the main message says something about the human mind and experience. James Dashner’s The Maze Runner gives readers a new perspective on how emotion and fear can can be almost like a prison. In the novel, gladers, or people living in the glade, live in constant fear of what lies within the maze and themselves. When Thomas arrives to the maze, he begins to change the way gladers think and how fear controls them. In The Maze Runner, the main message is that fear can control people and keep them in hiding, however, through sacrifice and commitment people can escape from fear and change their lives. This is demonstrated through Thomas, as he helps the gladers take control of their own future by exempting fear and eventually escaping the one thing that controlled them; the maze.
The gladers have been running the maze for as long as they can remember, but because of their fear and lack of commitment they have not made any new discoveries and have accepted their state of living as their reality. In the beginning of the novel,
Thomas longs to be a runner. He is however shut down because the gladers have almost given up and are hopeless that Thomas could help. When talking to Thomas,
Newt says, “Everything we doour whole life, Greenie revolves around the maze.
Every lovin’ second of every lovin’ day we spend trying to fix something in honor of the maze, tryin’ to solve somethin’ that’s not shown us it has a bloody solution, ya know?”
(Dashner 38). In other words the runners have spent years trying to solve something that seems unsolvable. Instead of trying new things and sending everyone they can into the maze, the gladers have accepted that they'll never solve the maze. Also, because of fear of the grievers, the runners return back to the glade every night, worsening progress. After Thomas sees a