Maze Runner Suspense

        The Maze Runner is an adventure novel set in a dystopian time period. James Dasher wrote the story of a group of teenage boys living in a scientific experiment, known as the Glade. The boys living there, the Gladers, do not remember anything except their name. The Glade is a square plaza surrounded by a vast intricate maze made of stone. “The walls had to ne hundreds of feet high and formed a perfect square around them, each side split in the exact middle by an opening as tall as the walls themselves that, from what Thomas could see, led to passages and long corridors beyond”(21). The Gladers have been sent to this unknown location to survive long enough to solve the maze and escape.

                 

        James Dasher builds suspense in this novel with the Thomas’s thoughts. There is an underlying theme that Thomas is different then the other Gladers. He seems to know more about the place then the others, and has more memory then them. “Suddenly, the Glade, the walls, the Maze- it all seemed…familiar. Comfortable, A warmth of calmness spread through his chest, and for the first time since he’d found himself there, he didn’t feel like the Glade was the worst place in the universe” (75). Thoughts like this that James Dasher adds builds the suspense and makes us wonder why he knows so much more and what is going to happen.

        Another way that James Dasher builds suspense is with his setting. A scary environment will cause tension and suspense in a book. “A thick silence followed the thunderous rumble of the Door closing, and a veil of darkness seemed to cover the sky, as if even the sun had been frightened away by what lurked in the Maze. Twilight had fallen, and the mammoth walls looked like enormous tombstones for giants”(218). This eerie setting, along with the fact that the number one rule is not to enter the maze, builds suspense.