James Dashner's The Maze Runner

Step 1: Quick Summary

The only thing that he can remember is that his name is Thomas. In James Dashner's sci-fi thriller, The Maze Runner you are constantly kept on edge about everything. Thomas wakes up and has about forty boys from ages twelve to nineteen staring down at him, curious, but not at all surprised that a sixteen year old kid had just come up an elevator to a field. The field was called the “glade” but had one twist. The Glade was surrounded by enormous walls made of gray stone and covered in spots with thick ivy that were hundred of feet high. And not only is Thomas confused by waking up in this strange place with only teenage boys, but they are all using weird words like “shank” , “greenbean” , “shuck-face” and “klunk”. Thomas

A quality that made Thomas become a leader was his determination. The readers know that Thomas’s determination is vital to the plot because without it, they may never have escaped the maze. This determination was useful to every person in the Glade when, “ ‘No, you don’t get it. They’re weeding us out, seeing if we’ll give up, finding the best of us. Throwing variables at us, trying to make us quit. Testing our ability to hope and fight. Sending Teresa here and shutting everything down was only the last part, one more… final analysis. Now it's time for the last test. To escape’ ”(Dashner 301). Thomas knew there was a way out of the aze. He showed hope to all the Gladers to be determined that there was, in fact a way out of the

The first time he demostres his bravery (or as some people call it, klunk) is “he saves Alby’s life, kills a couple of Grievers, and we’re sitting here yappin’ about what to do with him ” (Dasher 154). Basically, Thomas saw that two people were in need of help, so he jumped into the maze and ended up saving both of them and killing a couple vicious beasts on the way. Then, this action is followed by his anticipation to still want to become a runner after spending a night in the maze. After that, he willingly is stung by a griever to receive his memories to help save the lives of all the innocent kids. And to top it all off, he leads the Gladers into the maze for one final battle that he wins, while protecting his four best friends single-handedly.

Step 5: Irony *SPOILER ALERT*

The main irony in this novel is that once Thomas thinks that he has everything figured out and escapes the maze with his best friends, Minho, Newt, Chuck and Teresa everything goes wrong. Thomas had finally been freed from the burden of the maze, but it came with a price. Chuck was stabbed. The one person that showed Thomas that the maze wasn’t so bad sacrificed himself for Thomas. After all they had been through Thomas was supposed to die. But Chuck did not let that