Thomas in The Maze Runner: Comparing Hamlet and The Maze Runner

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."William Shakespeare. This quote says a lot about the way that William Shakespeare thinks about the world and in our world there is adventure and excitement. But sometimes people slip into the fantasy world of books and find the mysteries and adventures hidden within it.

The Maze Runner and Hamlet have similar themes and ideas. They both are bound together by the fear or thirst for death, in Hamlet it's the thirst for blood of his uncle/step farther and in The Maze Runner it is the adrenaline of staying alive and the thirst to kill the people who put them into the maze in the first place. In both of the books characters are influenced by the wrong people, if it's not your dead father's ghost that has come back from the dead to inform you of how he died thenit's your girlfriend that you hardly know but will do anything for even if it means to kill the man sitting in front of you.

Both of the Protagonists in the two books are killing or getting killed for perfect contentment, both of the protagonist are fed up with their lives and find cloud nine. The books have a commune goals where the protagonist are looking for the greater good but just get stoke on the ground when we know that they were meant to fly. A single death can cause a whole country to fall apart, a murder can drive someone to insanity and an eye for an eye can bring the strongest people to their knees.

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In both of the books death has been a major role player and a plot setter, death has enhanced the reader attention to the max and had them begging to reads the next chapter. In Hamlet the death of King Hamlet was a big moment in the book and to Hamlet.

HAMLET
O, that 'this too too solid flesh Would melt
Thaw and resolve Itself into a dew!
Now That The Everlasting HAD not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on't! ah trust! 'tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Merely Possess it.

This quote talks about the efforts and struggles that Hamlet and the kingdom have been going through because of the death of King Hamlet. This death also changed the way Hamlet thinks of the world and the people in the world. He is looking down on the world and god because his father died, and he thinks it is unfair that a man like his father should be killed by anyone or anything. In The Maze Runner the death of a kid going back into the box sent a message to the people in Glade.

In The maze runner a boy was sent into the box because he thought it would be the way out of the maze. But instead of finding the way out he was cut in half right in between his ribcage and this sent a message to the other boys in the maze because they now know that the people in who are controlling the maze are ruthless and will do anything to prevent you from leaving. This message still didn't stop Thomas from trying to escape because he would go to any measure to get out, because he thinks it is his destiny to do so. Near the end of the two books there were friends that were killed but the effect was not the same, from the two protagonists.

In The Maze Runner Thomas's best friend dies because he is stabbed in the heart, Thomas's reaction to this was crucial and it told the audience what Thomas thinks of his friends. "But now Chuck was gone. And his limp body, to which Thomas still clung, seemed a cold talisman-that not only would those dreams of a hopeful future never come to pass, but that life had never been that way in the first place. That even in escape, dreary days lay ahead. A life of sorrow."

Chapter 60 In Hamlet when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sent to their the death roles by Hamlet this lets the audience know that Hamlet is gone cold hearted and will do anything for his revenge even if it means going through his friends while on the on the hand Thomas would not even think of that. All in all death has brought sorrow, sadness, jealousy, knowledge and joy to the characters in these two books and they have been able to go through all of these deaths and still make it to the final destinations.

The influence of others can have a big effect on you and the way a person thinks and acts, some of these influences can be good like the influence of your parents and teacher, but influences can also be bad and lead to disasters unheard of. In hamlet the influence of King Hamlet on Hamlet had a lot to do with the story and the plot. In Hamlet, King Hamlet tells Hamlet that he was murdered by his brother and his wife was cheating on him.

If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once.
The glowworm shows the matin to be near
And gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.

This caused hamlet to seek revenge from his uncle Claudius and kill him when he is committing a sin so he will go straight to hell. Although King Hamlet's influence was the starting point of a great play, King Hamlet had given the wrong influence on his son and had made him commit a sin and a murder. In The Maze Runner Thomas and the Gladers are in a maze and one day the maze goes quiet and there is nothing is working the way it should, then at night the creators send a griever into their home territory to kill one of them and gave a message that if they do not escape we will kill you one each night.

This "influence" was a game changer in the book because it showed the Gladers that if they do not escape quickly they will die slowly but surely they will all be dead, "He's just discouraged," Thomas said with a weary shrug. "We didn't find anything different. The walls haven't moved, no exits, nothing. Did the Grievers come last night? "Newt paused, darkness passing over his face. Finally, he nodded. "Yeah. They took Adam. "Thomas didn't know the name, and felt guilty for feeling nothing. Just one person again, he thought. Maybe Gally was right""This motivated the Gladers to take the step forward and find a way to get out of the maze by getting stung and going through the changing to get your memories back.

This influence was for the good for the people of the Glade and helped them escape the maze and get back into civilization. Even though a lot of people think that an influence can be a bad thing but an influence is just a sign for you to take that first step forward and go to the other side either it is for good or for evil.

Thing happen in life for a reason, and certain things in life can drive a man or woman to a point of madness that they can never return from. In hamlet he was changed by the influences people had in his life and the events that had occurred. Hamlet would be a different person if the events that had happened had not, because they had occurred hamlet was breached to madness. The events were a life changing experience for hamlet, an example is when hamlet was not sure if the ghost was telling the truth or not in the beginning of the play.

But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!
Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,.

Hamlet had to make a lot of hard decisions in the course of the play that would decide his and how other people's lives would continue from that point on. Just thinking of the choices hamlet had to make would drive any ordinary person crazy, when hamlet is in the room with Claudius and he is going to kill him but decides not to was and is a life changing moment in any bodies life.

Now might I do it pat. Now he is a-praying.
And now I'll do 't. And so he goes to heaven.
And so am I revenged.-That would be scanned.
A villain kills my father, and, for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
Oh, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread,
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May.
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?

Anybody how went through that phase where you have to decide to kill someone, even if you were told by your dead father, would be freighting and enough to make anybody go mad. The Maze Runner has a similar incident as well, the Gladers are being eaten alive by the Grievers that live outside of the maze, and when a griever stings you, you get crazy and start remembering all of your past that the creators had taken away from you in the beginning.

But when the creators want the Gladers to leave the maze the protagonist in the play needs to remember what his past was like to help get out of the maze, so what he does is he get stung by the griever even though he knows that the incident will make him crazy. It was needed to be done and he just stepped up to take that role it had to be done, is what he said, and the same thing happened when Hamlet said that he needed to kill Claudius. In conclusion, we all go through moments in our life that will change us in ways we cannot imagine, as it happened with the protagonists in these books.

In conclusion, when comparing the two novels, "Hamlet" and "The Maze Runner there was a lot of similarities between the two, the protagonists were both influenced by others to do what they may believe was wrong, they both are the victim of many deaths in the books, they were also breached to the edge of madness. Even though both of the protagonists have a lot in commune, they are different in ways. They think differently and they have different goals in the two books, they are both looking for their perfect contentment in the world.

Hamlet is looking for a world where his father is not dead and there is no one trying to kill him and take over the crown of Denmark, and in The Maze Runner Thomas is looking for a world that is not infected with a manmade disease that is turning the world into a chaotic place, and a world where he is not living in a maze where scientist control his life and are waiting for him to be the saviour of the world. The two books are alike in some ways and also have differences, but the books are giving use a message that you need to look for the greater good in everything and even if it means that you need to put your life on the line you must continue on the road to find your perfect contentment.

Works Cited

1. "Brainy Quote." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 16 Dec. 2013. <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_shakespeare.html>.
2. Dashner, James. The maze runner. New York: Delacorte Press, 2009.Print.
3. "Hamlet Mortality Quotes Page 2." Shmoop. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013.<http://www.shmoop.com/hamlet/mortality-quotes-2.html>.
4. Shakespeare, William, and Harold Jenkins. Hamlet. London: Methuen, 1982. Print.

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