Blog Post # 18: The Maze Runner

          I still have a few more chapters in The Maze Runner. In this blog post, I'd like to talk about the themes in the book, what the author wants the reader to think, feel, and know. In my most recent blog post (# 17), I talked about how my ideas connected to life and what the events taught us about living in the world. To briefly recall, I talked about how Ben's banishment showed the need for self-control and how there are no second chances in life. As said in that post, we need to control what we say and what we do to have order. And if we don't have order we make mistakes, and there are no second chances. Like in the book itself, the Keepers always stressed about having "order". Always doing what was told, following the rules. Therefore, I think the theme based on these ideas would have to be to be orderly and systematic in life. One point I'd like to make though is that the book doesn't necessarily "revolve" around this theme, like it may would around other themes. I feel that this theme is a very small one, but I still think it's important to the book, and still applies to the book. I think I remember once in the book where one of the Keepers said that if there was no order, then they wouldn't have survived for two years in the Glade. I think it also goes for the real world. If we didn't plan things out, have laws, ways of doing things, etc., the world would be chaotic. I believe that order is key to the world.

          Throughout the whole book, everyone in the Glade was brave. For the two years that they've been stuck there, they never got scared and panicked. Towards the end, when the Grievers would come at night, they would stand their ground. When they needed to physically fight off the Grievers, they were brave and did what they had to do. I think this is another small yet important theme because again, without the bravery they wouldn't have survived for so long. Bravery also kind of makes me think about the Gladers working together. They helped each other get through things, helped comfort each other when needed to, and just basically lived and worked together. I think that yet again, without that team work they wouldn't have been able to live through the next day and the next.

          One big theme I realized was present in the book was trust. When Thomas first entered the Glade, he didn't know who to trust, he didn't know anybody and his memory had been wiped out. But it actually turned out that he was able to trust the others pretty quickly and that made me realize why. He was able to trust others quickly because that was the only way. There was no one else he could really count on and they had been there longer than he has. He had no one else to turn to, and even though some turned out to seem really mean at first, like Gally and Alby, he didn't exactly make enemies with any of them because again, they were all in fact on the same side, the same boat, no where else to go. In the middle, the Keepers had lost a little of their trust on Thomas because weird things were happening after he arrived.Thomas had to gain it back quickly because without it, he wouldn't been able to go anywhere, and probably the rest of the Gladers couldn't have gone anywhere either.  The author writes this to show that trust is important. We need that trust to help us communicate with people to move forward in life. And sometimes, not having the trust is also important, will also help us move forward in life. I was watching the show Criminal Minds the other day, and in every episode, they have a quote said in the beginning of the episode and at the end of it. When I was watching it, the quote at the end was "you may be deceived if you trust to much, but you will leave in torment if you don't trust enough". So basically it means you have to have the right about of trust: can't trust too much and can't trust too little because either way, you'll "suffer". I think trust is a very important and good theme to make in this book.