25 Discussion Questions for The Maze Runner by James Dashner (With Analysis) | Chapterly Blog
Quick Answer: James Dashner's The Maze Runner drops its characters — and the reader — into a mystery with no explanation, making forced amnesia and withheld information its central technique. The 25 questions below move past the action into memory and identity, survival and self-government, authority and the ethics of experimentation (WICKED), and leadership, making them ideal for book clubs, YA reading groups, and classrooms. James Dashner's The Maze Runner drops its characters into a situation with no explanation and forces both them and the reader to piece together the truth, and The Maze Runner discussion questions push into the novel's deeper concerns about memory, authority, consent, and what we owe each other when survival is at stake. Whether you are in a book club, a YA reading group, or a classroom, these questions are designed for substantive conversation. Published in 2009, the novel follows Thomas, a teenager who arrives in the Glade — a grassy enclosure surrounded by an enormous, ever-shifting maze — with no memory of who he is or how he got there. The Glade is populated by other boys in the same situation, who have built a society with rules, roles, and a hierarchy. Thomas's arrival...