Throughout literature, different novels tell the stories of different characters. Every character has personal feelings, emotions, and morals much like real-life people. They have certain things that guide them, and act based upon their individual beliefs. In The Maze Runner by James Dashner, the story follows and entire community called The Gladers. While the main character is a boy named Thomas, his individual moral compass doesn’t stand for too much because all of The Gladers tend to stay together and work off of each other. While Thomas is the center of the story, The Gladers have a moral compass that they closely follow. It isn’t about the individual. It’s about all of them working together as a unit.
The biggest aspect of all of The Gladers moral compass is togetherness. They all have different “ranks” and aren’t at the same level as one another, but they all play an important roll. When Thomas wakes up in the Glade, he doesn’t know anybody there, or even remember anything. Still he must make friends with the kids who make up the Glade, and work together with them to achieve a specific goal. He really can’t just choose to isolate himself, because he needs the others to survive.
The Gladers and Thomas all have a certain goal. They all must survive. It may not technically be a moral at first glance, but survival is their way of life. They have to do anything to survive. Working together, they must make sure to protect one another and be there for each other when there are obstacles.
They would never be able to survive in the Glade if they gave up. Thomas and The Gladers must always try their hardest. They experience failures trying to solve the maze while they are stuck in the Glade. However, they always have to keep trying their hardest in order to come up with different plans and strategies. At the beginning of Chapter 38, Newt says, “Closest I’ve come so far to hangin’ it all up. Shuck it all and kiss a Griever goodnight. Supplies cut, bloody gray skies, walls not closing. But we can’t give up, and we all know it. The buggers who sent us here either want us dead or they’re givin’ us a spur. This or that, we gotta work our arses off till we’re dead or not dead” (248). It’s like soldiers fighting together in a war. In war, a country’s military has a specific goal. There are scattered objectives throughout, but there is always one main goal that they work to accomplish before the war can end. They see defeats and death, but they always have to keep working, and continue to come up with better plans to accomplish the task. This is like Thomas and The Gladers. No matter the failures they go through, they have to keep trying, and solve the puzzle which tells them how to finish the maze.
It is very interesting that we have the power to create many different characters with endless personalities! However, what’s an example of togetherness? What brought them together? I like how you use surviving as a moral. Isn’t that what is our main priority in life is, and our own survival is more important even if you have to hurt others. We have to be selfish to a point.
ReplyDeleteI like how you talk about all of the characters individual compasses not being nearly as important as the one that they all follow together. Do you think that this is only possible in small groups such as the one in the book that must depend entirely on each other to survive or does it can it occur on a larger scale?
ReplyDeletegreat post dude. you write really well, but i think you could improve it by adding more evidence to support your points. your last paragraph was awesome, if you used that as a template for all your paragraphs you would have a spectacular post. every word made me want to read the maze runner more and more.
ReplyDeleteI like the analogy you made between the gladers and soldiers fighting in a war. It seems as though all of the morals that are important to the gladers can be translated to soldiers. You connected it directly with never giving up, but the other two points, survival and togetherness, are also pretty well connected to the analogy. Soldiers are all working together to accomplish certain goals including the ultimate goal of survival. Great job though, after reading all of these Maze Runner posts I'm dying to actually read the book!
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