Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Maze Runner, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory and Identity
Stability and Order vs. Change and Chaos
Sacrifice
Growing Up
Hope
Sexism
Summary
Analysis
As Thomas hears the Doors begin to close, Alby arrives at the Slammer and lets him out. Alby tells Thomas that during the Changing, he saw Thomas helping the Creators, but that the images he saw could just be fake memories implanted by the Creators in order to make them suspicious of Thomas. Alby hopes this is true, saying that if the images he saw of the world outside the Glade were real, then he would rather stay in the Glade than go home.
Since he was in jail, Thomas missed dinner so he eats leftovers that the cook, a boy named Frypan, had prepared especially for him in gratitude for saving the lives of Minho and Alby. Minho joins Thomas as he eats and tells him what he should expect for Runner training tomorrow. Minho also tells him a fable about a woman trapped in a labyrinth who found the exit by sliding her right hand against the wall, turning right at every turn. Minho says that by the laws of physics and geometry, she was able to find the exit. But in the Maze, Minho says, all the paths just lead back to the Glade. After dinner, Thomas gets into his sleeping bag and wonders what the Runners have been missing.
Unlike the woman in the fable, the Gladers’ use of logic and reason to solve the Maze has been a total failure. These failures have led them to see the Maze as a symbol of chaos. If the Maze, a source of fear and anxiety, represents chaos for the boys, then it becomes clear why they want the Glade to run on a system of law and order: they want their home to be as different from the Maze as possible.
Themes
