Scary situations, strange mysteries, and getting attacked by vicious artificial monsters are just a few of the things characters face in the shocking world of The Maze Runner. In chapters 57 and 58 the author used figurative language to support the story’s symbolic archetype, The Maze. The author adds similes and personification to further describe the hero’s journey of Thomas and the quest of the escaping gladers.

 

          James Dashner’s book the Maze Runner has lots of analogies in the form of similes and metaphors which help the reader understand the story. Escaping the maze is an extremely hard task for the Gladers and they almost get to the point of dying and giving up. “The seething impossibility of their predicament was like a heavy deluge of black water flooding around him, dragging him toward surrender” Page 338. By using a simile, James Dashner really lets the reader know how hard it is for the Gladers to keep alive as they travel to the maze’s exit. The cold conditions of the Griever Hole greatly surprised Thomas. “A line of icy cold shot across Thomas’s skin as he entered the Griever Hole, starting from his toes and continuing up his whole body, as if he’d jumped through a flat plane of freezing water” Page 342. The simile described how Thomas felt when he was met with a huge blast of cold down in the Griever Hole. Grievers, which are the disgusting and dangerous creatures that travel through the Maze make very creepy sounds. “But nothing sent chills up and down Thomas’s spine like the haunted, deathly moans that somehow escaped the creature when it sat still, like the sound of dying men on a battlefield.” Page 127. The use of the simile helped describe the terrible and haunting sounds Griever’s make. During the Maze Runner, similes gave background information and better descriptions of what is happening in the story.

 

          The use of personification in the Maze Runner increases the intensity of certain situations and brings important information to the reader’s mind. On page 258, Thomas has a near-death experience where he is literally a few feet from a Griever that is eating a Glader named Gally. “Panic exploded within him, consumed him.” By using personification, the story is more intense because it shows Thomas’s panic as if it was taking over him when he was watching Gally slowly being eaten by the disgusting Griever. Thomas, along with Minho were running through the maze when they found writing on one of the walls that read: WORLD IN CATASTROPHE: KILLZONE EXPERIMENT DEPARTMENT. This was a very mysterious event and something that Thomas remembered. “And off they went, those six words burning holes in his mind” page 214. Personification was used in this instance because it made the 6 words very important to the story and more mysterious and intense. The 6 words lead to something about a World Catastrophe and since James Dashner used personification to signal it is important, the reader will be provoked to predict why the main characters are trapped in the maze. Overall, James Dashner uses personification well in action packed events and mysterious situations to add intensity and signal something important happening in the story.

 

          The Maze Runner is a very interesting book and includes a lot of figurative language which is used to help understand the story. At the end of the story, there are some questions that need to be answered. Why does the maze exist? Who put them in the maze? What is the flare? The Maze Runner’s story is very intricate and mysterious and the sequels are hopefully going to reveal the rest of the story and what happens to the main characters.