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Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The Glade
When Thomas rises up out of the Box, he’s thrust into the bizarre world of the Glade and its residents, the Gladers. With few memories to rely on and much to learn about his new life, Thomas quickly realizes that the Glade symbolizes safety. This area within the walls features order, rules, and roles all designed to keep the community members safe. As he gets his first glimpse of a Griever through the window, he understands the danger that exists outside the Glade, especially at night. Banishment outside the Glade serves as the community’s harshest punishment and is tantamount to a death sentence. When the Glade’s Doors no longer close, this symbol of safety becomes corrupted.
The Box
The Box symbolizes the Gladers’ connection to the outside world. Thomas, like other Greenies, arrives in the Box to be delivered into a new life in the Glade, though no one knows who controls the Box’s movements. The Box also brings food, clothes, and other supplies to keep the Glade functioning. Though the Gladers can make requests by leaving a note in the Box, these requests are not always granted. Other than allowing for these occasional requests, the Box provides a one-way connection to the real world. Gladers can’t travel back to the real world in the Box, as they are reminded by the existence of the half-corpse of a Glader who’d once tried to use the Box to escape. This connection runs on order, and the Gladers’ dependence on it to function properly is a method of control.
Language
Cut off from the outside world, the Glade residents develop a community that thrives on order and hierarchy. The slang language they’ve developed stands as one symbol of the society in the Glade. When he arrives, Thomas finds much of the Gladers’ language familiar, but he doesn’t recognize slang words like klunk, shuck, and shank. Titles such as Keeper and Slopper are also confusing to Thomas. His lack of understanding marks Thomas as a newcomer in this place where being an outsider puts him at risk. Thomas eventually slips this slang into his vocabulary, showing his ability to adapt and his desire to be part of the Glader society.
The girl
Teresa, first known only as “the girl,” arrives in the Glade as a symbol of change. In a society that heavily depends on order, change is a threat to survival. That the Box delivers a new Greenie just a day after Thomas arrives, rather than the prescribed month between delivery of new Gladers, is enough to send the Glade into upheaval. Further disruptive is the fact that the new resident is female, while all before her have been male. Compounding the chaos surrounding this event, the girl appears to be half-dead. While still in a coma-like state, Teresa telepathically delivers a vital and ominous message: Everything is going to change. Change indeed comes quickly to the Glade shortly after Teresa’s arrival. When the sun doesn’t come up, the Doors don’t close, and no supplies arrive, the Gladers’ safety net disappears, and their chances for survival wane. Though they do not yet realize that Teresa has been sent to trigger the Ending, it is clear that nothing in the Glade is the same after the arrival of the girl.
Walls
The walls stand as a symbol of containment and separation from the world, not just in and around the Glade, but also in the characters’ minds. The Gladers don’t know who or what brought them to this place. While they are physically contained within the walls of the Glade, their full memories are also walled off and inaccessible. These mental walls only break down during the Changing, a process that creates more madness than it does certainty. If the flashes of memories the Gladers access during the Changing can be trusted, the mental walls serve their purpose, showing them just enough of the outside world that they’re afraid to leave the physical walls of the Glade. The movement of those physical walls, which ultimately stop functioning, illustrates how forces of the outside world act on the Gladers while keeping them contained and at a distance.
