To provide social commentary regarding the dismal, yet realistic possibility of government surveillance, a human’s capacity for violence, and loss of self, James Dashner creates a futuristic society in which children are under manipulation through supervision. In The Maze Runner, children are stripped from everything they have. This includes materialistic possessions, family, friends, and their memory of all of those things. The teenagers’ reality is living in an experiment and fighting for their lives by the result of a disease. In the world today, there are are a plethora of diseases, but even with advanced medical technology, a lot remain incurable. The Maze Runner presents a possible outcome of a terribly contagious disease. James Dashner uses social commentary to explain the negative aspects of a world which the government is almost in complete control. In The Maze Runner, Dashner exploits social commentary to show the disadvantages of government surveillance. For example, the Glade bears “Beetle Blades---it’s how the Creators [of the Maze] watch [them]” (Dashner 46). Although not relevant in 2009, when the book was published, it is now a reality for people in China. …show more content…
This topic is the most highlighted one throughout the story. All of the children were deprived from everything they had; the world they lived in, the people they knew, and the memories of all of those things. To clarify, the main character Thomas states that “his memory loss was baffling in its complexity” (Dashner 44). Each boy in the Glade was full of knowledge, but no origin of it. Conversely, society today has not experienced much loss in self identity, but the idea of it is one of the most chilling concepts to ponder. By means of social commentary, Dashner demonstrates this exact concept of one’s loss of self
The memories also play a dual role as they make the man hopeful yet they also scare him because he is afraid that through remembering things again and again he might taint his memories of the good times forever. “He thought each memory recalled must do some violence to its origins. As in a party game. Say the word and pass it on. So be sparing. What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.” (McCarthy 51). The boy although carries on hoping even though all he has are memories of the polluted grey ashes that have always been falling from the sky, the ashes that he was born into. The child has no memories of a past world that held beauty and color and so he relies on his father’s accounts and stories of the past to imagine a world that was anything but the bleakness that he is so accustomed to. But the father, although mostly indulges to the child’s wishes, sometimes cannot bring himself to tell him made up stories of the past because as much as he wants to he cannot remember a lot of it and when he does remember it, it reminds of a world that is no more and that he does not know will ever come back into existence or not. “What would you like? But he stopped making things up because those things were not true either and the telling made him feel bad.” (McCarthy 22). Where at first the child believes the father’s accounts of heroes and stories of courage
Ender’s Game was first released in 1985, which was in the middle of the Cold War. During the Cold War, the US and Russia were under intense privacy pressure because of secret spies from both countries. The US government was always watching over its citizens to ensure there were no possible Russian spies. Because of the constant overlook of citizens, people living in the US are in constant privacy fear. Citizens usually disliked the idea of government overlooking citizens and discouraged it.
The book “ The Maze Runner” by James Dashner is a dystopian society where individuals are selected to be put in the maze to live with others that were put in there also. In the “maze” each
“‘We’re looking at a highly sophisticated organism, aren’t we?’” The filoviruses are dangerous. They are responsible for the deaths of thousands, nation-wide panic, and the abandonment of homes and villages. But although the book describes the filoviruses with gruesome scenes filled with blood and terror, it also depicts the calm, quiet moments as well, letting the reader fall back and appreciate how peaceful it can be between the moments of panic. “ I heard a ball bounce, and saw a boy dribbling as basketball on a playground. The ball cast rubbery echoes off the former monkey house. Children's shouts came from the daycare center through the trees.” The reader gradually understands that no matter how peaceful the world can seem to be, it will always revert briefly back into its times of chaos and confusion, and that we should appreciate the moments of peace more because of this. It gives the reader a sense that the world is fragile in its balance of the two spectrums, and it horrifies and thrills them. Ultimately, the author’s purpose is to let the reader appreciate the fragility, beauty, and horror of the world and the things that make up
For many, they believe the government can help in a broken society, as for others, they know they can only make things worse. Although many dystopian society governments try to help these groups, the characters know they can only bring bad. The constant fear of being watched by the government in The Maze Runner emphasizes the dangers of surveillance and the loss of individuality which ultimately lead to a lack of hope and confidence in oneself. Firstly, in The Maze Runner, the government uses surveillance to keep people contained. Being watched by the government always keeps a constant fear of being struck throughout everybody.
People do not have to fly to be hero, it takes much more. Many heroes of today are shown to have supernatural powers that makes them acquire amazing abilities, flying, super strength, skills to manifest anything, the list goes on. Our heroes in the present time are perceived by the audiences' mindset to have special powers but there are times where being a hero does not need to have all the extra tricks. Thomas, a character in The Maze Runner is thrown unconsciously with no memory into a place of the unknown called the Glades, consisting of only teenagers inhabiting the area. He would soon find out the whole place is bordered by a big wall that closes by night and day to protect them from the maze that are filled with demonic
Several conflicting frames of mind have played defining roles in shaping humanity throughout the twentieth century. Philosophical optimism of a bright future held by humanity in general was taken advantage of by the promise of a better life through sacrifice of individuality to the state. In the books Brave New World, 1984, and Fahrenheit 451 clear opposition to these subtle entrapments was voiced in similarly convincing ways. They first all established, to varying degrees of balance, the atmosphere and seductiveness of the “utopia” and the fear of the consequences of acting in the non-prescribed way through character development. A single character is alienated because of their inability to conform – often in protest to the forced
In many novels, childhood is represented as an enjoyable season before the hardships of adolescence and adulthood. Although the boys in The Glade have to work, The Glade still has many representations of childhood “…Yet the trees were all tall and sturdy… it was somehow beautiful” (Dashner 67).The Glade is safe regardless of the Griever in The Maze, there is enough food delivered each month with a perfect weather described as “the air felt perfect…never got to cold or too hot… it could be paradise”(Dashner 199).These are the many ways that The Glade is alike childhood. Childhood is a good time of life but later life becomes challenging also as The Gladers
The book 1984 and the real life world have many things in common, one being that surveillance is a big part of society. Many people in our society do not know they are being watched, people can be watched from almost anywhere, whether it is through their phone or while they are walking on the streets. By being watched you have no privacy and can not keep anything personal. Surveillance can have positive and negative effects but in the book 1984 surveillance had negative effects on Winston. It was negative for him because his every move was being watched, they had telescreens all over that knew where he was, he could not do anything without the party knowing. The party thrived on power and they got most of the power by watching every move that
In the beginning, the main character, Thomas, has his memory wiped so he doesn’t know anything. Over time though, he begins to accept where he is (the Glade) and that the people in the Glade have nothing but each other. Thomas also adapts to the Glade’s slang, and talks like a Glader. He also saves the lives of some Gladers who are his friends, such as Alby. At the end Thomas became a sort of leader, trying to make the best decisions when the rest of the Gladers didn’t know what to do. Thomas talks to the other Gladers like someone would talk to their friends or family, and Thomas does his best to help protect the Gladers. Thomas is hard and cold to the people from WICKED, as at the end one of their workers kills Chuck, one of Thomas’s
Thomas is the narrator and protagonist of the story. He arrives in the maze with no knowledge of who he is or was. He only remembers his name and nothing else about his life. Thomas proves to be brave and clever even though he only has a very limited memory of previous knowledge of the Maze. Since arriving in the maze, Thomas makes both friends and enemies and proves to be a leader among the other boys with him in the maze.
Technology is apart of mostly everyone’s life and daily schedule, but often people fail to realize the fact that the government has the ability to monitor everything someone does through these devices. In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, a futuristic government spies on their citizens through technology found all throughout their homes. The government used secret microphones, telescreens, and the thought police, a group in charge of finding rebels against the party, in order to monitor what people say and think. There are many examples of this in today’s society: Amazon’s Alexa, Samsung Smart televisions, and social media apps. Amazon’s Alexa and Samsung Smart Televisions are voice recognition systems
The famous book The Maze Runner by James Smith Dashner, is the famous story about a young man named Thomas who wakes up in the middle of a metallic box that serves as an elevator with no memory of his past, the box opens up to a place called “the Glade” with 60 other boys staring back at him as he tries to run away pass them. Every thirty days a new boy or supplies arrive from the box and for three years they have lived together trying to find clues through the maze that surrounds them; but as they start losing hope it all changes when something unprecedented happens and a girl along with a note arrive through the box. The book along with amazing imagery and relevance to today’s world manages to attract more than just teenagers but anybody that is up for the challenge of the maze, and that is just the purpose of this paper to demonstrate multiple reason of why this book not only deserves to be read but it should hold a place in the literary canon.
The terrifying nature of freedom causes individuals to assimilate into society out of fear. Societies thus take advantage of this by oppressing individuals to maintain stability. In George Orwell’s 1984, which is based on a rundown city called Oceania, the proles always accept everything that the party tells them without any questions. They let the government completely control their lives without hesitation. The Maze Runner by James Dashner also exhibits oppressive environments and individuals who accept these societies. In the Maze Runner, the people in the maze are all trapped in a maze, limiting where they can go and what they can do. Both 1984 and The Maze Runner exhibit the oppressive nature of society and how accepting to be controlled
Why do we need a purpose for writing a book? For example the book The Maze Runner by James Dashner? An Author Purpose is the reason an author decides to write about a specific topic. James Dashner who wrote the novel The Maze Runner was trying to inform us, Sense of hope and to entertain his readers by studying their brain patterns. They were trying to figure out how the brain patterns of a non-immune.