Brady Almeida

Title: The Maze Runner

Author: James Dashner

Genre: Science Fiction

Published: October 2007

Pages: 367

1. Two of the most significant characters in the book are Minho and Thomas. Thomas is a
brave, clever, and cheerful young teen, with telepathic powers. Minho, navigator of the maze, is
short-tempered, but very loyal. I would never be able to be like Thomas, as I am the last person
that would be brave in a situation like theirs. I consider myself to be more like Minho. Although
I do not see myself to be short-tempered, I do see myself to be loyal. Minho and Thomas were
not the greatest of friends upon meeting each other; however, after getting trapped in the maze
over night, they became great friends. Similarly I had a “friend” that I was not fond of, but we
met in a middle ground on a game that we both play, and now we hang out just about every day.

2.One of the main characters, Thomas, wakes up in an elevator with no memory of his past, or
how he ended up in the elevator. He is greeted by a group of boys that seem to have a strange
vocabulary. He is introduced into an area called the Glade that is run by two boys, Alby and
Newt. In the Glade, all the teenage boys are harvesting food and trying to stay alive, as outside
the Glade, there is a maze of moving walls that house deadly creatures called grievers. The boys
or Gladers, have been trying to solve the maze and find a way out.

A day after Thomas arrives, a girl, Teresa, arrives with a strange message, saying that nothing
will be the same, then lapses into a coma. When she arrives, things start to become strange in the
Glade. The weekly supplies stop arriving, the maze doors stay open at night, allowing the
grievers to pick off the teens, and the sun disappears at a point.Strangely, she and Thomas can
communicate telepathically. They communicate and learn more about each other.

Thomas discovers that the moving walls are not just moving to make it harder to get out, but they
are forming words, or a code. The group also discovers that the antidote to a sting of a griever
brings back memories. The Gladers make a run through the maze, once they discover the code.
They have to fight off the grievers to put the code into a computer. Once the code was entered,
the grievers all die and the Gladers are saved by a rebel group and brought to a place where they
can eat and sleep.

3.A symbol in The Maze Runner is the sun. Throughout the entire book, the sun rose in the
morning and set in the evening. In the ending, the sun completely disappears and leaves a dull
grey sky. In that night, the doors that closed to keep the Gladers safe from grievers, was open,
leaving them exposed. The sun represents a sense of hope and normality, something that the
Gladers could rely on. As soon as the sun vanished, the hopes of the Gladers vanished, as did the
normality of the maze.

4."If you ain't scared," Alby said, "you ain't human. Act any different and I'd throw you off the
Cliff because it'd mean you're a psycho." This quote personally shows me that there is no reason
to be afraid to show fear in a situation. Thomas tried to act courageous when he arrived at the
maze, but in reality he was terrified. Alby saw this and straightened him out. Being afraid only
shows that you are human. There is no need to act tough if you are not able to handle it. It can
show your group that there is something wrong with you, or that you know something and are
not sharing it.

5.The Maze Runner by James Dashner, is a fantastic book. This book had a little bit of an
impact on my life in the way that it showed life values of loyalty, order and teamwork. I always
thought that you needed an older authority of at least 25 years and older to obtain order, but they
showed me that you can have people work together to maintain it. I would recommend it to
people that enjoyed the Hunger Game series, as it is very similar to it.