Character Development In Monument 14 By Emily Laybourne

In the novel Monument 14, written by Emily Laybourne, there are many recurring ideas. These topics include the coming of age, survival, and dependence on technology. The author portrays these ideas by character development in Monument 14. In the time that the setting takes place, there is something very similar to the internet called “The Network.” This complex system is connected to every technological device. It is widely believed that this indestructible connection will never go down. The protagonist, Dean, is riding on the bus to get to school in the morning. His younger brother, Alex, is on a different bus ahead of them. Suddenly, it begins to hail, but the weather condition does not diminish, it gradually gets worse. As time goes on, the hail gets larger and larger until each hail ball is the size of a baseball. The bus is being smashed by

In the beginning of the novel, the rules of survival of the fittest were applied when the bus tipped over. Nobody cared about anyone but themselves, everyone was concerned for themselves so that they could survive. All they knew was they were in trouble and they needed to protect themselves. The characters showed dependence on technology towards the middle of the first couple chapters. An example of this was when Alex found the tablets were not working. He started panicking saying, “The Network can’t be down! It can’t be. You don’t know what this means!” (17). This shows how they depend technology to function, they didn’t know how to react because they were so dependent on the BigTabs, that when it went down, they panicked. Towards the end of the novel, every character ends up more mature than how they started out in the beginning. At the start. Dean was lonely. The closest friend he had was someone on the bus who said his shoe was untied. In the end. he helped most of the kids