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Fame In James Dashner's The Maze Runner

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Fame. It has always had a very positive connotation behind it with people willing to do anything to achieve stardom. However, many people too focused on the pursuit of success, do not realize the downside to gaining popularity as an author following the success of a novel. Because of society’s expectations of fame, authors of Young Adult (YA) novels are expected to surpass the extreme standard set in place by the beloved books they created in the past. James Dashner is no exception. He experiences the immense pressure of writing books that not only has to entertain teenagers around the world, but also must live up to his greatest success, The Maze Runner. James Dashner has been greatly influenced by the media, his family life and the places …show more content…

I really love characters that are complicated, with layers. I love heroes with flaws and villains for whom you feel empathy” (Dashner b). This is accomplished with a cast of characters who do not know who they were before The Maze or even who their family was especially Chuck who really wanted to know his family, “‘It’s weird to feel sad and homesick, but have no idea what it is you wish you could go back to, ya know? All I know is I don’t want to be here. I want to go back to my family. Whatever’s there, whatever I was take from. I wanna remember’” (Dashner a 192). The boy’s memories are stolen from them showing how deeply they are manipulated by the group WICKED. As The Maze Runner progresses, Thomas, the group of boys, and the reader start learning more about this organization WICKED (World in Catastrophe-Killzone Experiment Department). WICKED is a group created by the world government to stop the Flare, who created The Maze the boys are in. After hearing the reasons behind The Maze, the reader debates whether the group, WICKED, are really the villains. The Flare started out as a disease that was released to control the population since there are not enough resources to sustain the amount of people on earth but the virus ended up spreading through the air. With the goal of curing the Flare in mind, WICKED created the maze to test kids who were immune to the Flare as explained by a WICKED employee in The Maze Runner. Dashner displays how deeply they can manipulate these boys called the Gladers with the power they have over them and created a debate over whether WICKED’s actions are justified or out of line, "As for you, all of you—you're just a few of millions orphaned. They tested thousands, chose you for the big one. The ultimate test. Everything you lived through was calculated and thought through[….] All in an attempt to find those

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The film The Maze Runner shows strong character contrast through the main protagonist, Thomas, and the villain, Gally. Thomas views the world with strong curiosity where Gally doesn’t like to ask questions and dislikes change. The two can be most obviously compared by looking at their personalities and the similarities and differences between them. Another way of comparison for the two is by seeing what their physical conflicts involve and how they attempt to resolve them. Both Gally and Thomas want to achieve the same major goal of survival, but through their personalities and instincts the way they try to achieve this is very different.

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The flashbacks were a key in the book because it made Thomas know he was part of the awful act, but led to their escape. Dashner also used irony when the reader realizes that Thomas and Teresa both use to work for the people that placed them in the maze. This was ironic because they were angry at whoever put them there in the maze. The author’s tone is a key element because it makes the reader feel worried along with everyone else in the maze. Each word the author uses helps to express the feelings and theme of The Maze Runner.

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The maze runner is a young adult, science fiction and post-apocalyptic book that has the purpose of introducing the reader into a fantasy world where things can get a little out of control and surviving remains the main focus. The story starts mysteriously with the title character named Thomas, a teenage boy, who wakes up with no memory after arriving with a moving box into a Glade surrounded by a Maze. The book explores different psychological stages of the characters and help up understand how it is like to live with no memory and surrounded by people you do not know. The author, a young man also, has a particular interest in adventure and survival plots due to their excitement upon readers. The author came with the idea of writing a novel involving a crowd of teenagers trapped into an unbreakable Maze filled with hideous creatures while he was dreaming.

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