Reading Response on Critical Thinking Question

          The question that I decided to focus on is how the book The Death Cure by James Dashner, part of a 4 part series, relates or involves the issue of justice in the world. I chose this question because I felt that it is a big issue in these books as well as in the world. The main focus in these series is that there is a disease spreading throughout the whole world called the Flare, so the remaining governments in the world that have survived have come together to create and organization called WICKED – World In Catastrophe Killzone Experiment Department. This organization has been created purposefully to find a way to beat the Flare. To do this though they have created an experiment by wiping out teenagers’ memories and using them like lab rats. All of this makes you think about the decisions governments/organizations have to make and whether or not these decisions are fair.

            I think, justice comes in account in this book because there are really two main views of which one can agree with: One is to wipe out any memories of these teenagers’ family, childhood, and everything else and make them go through torturous trails and experiments just to study their brain responses and potentially find a cure for the rest of the world, or, not do any of that and find another solution to this problem, maybe less torturous. I don’t really know which is worse and which is better but it is definitely an issue in the world that the government always has to make a very difficult decision in society, for example: sacrifice tens of thousands of people to save millions more or not sacrifice anyone but risk losing many more than the other. These are all situations and problems that I think all fall in the category of justice and fairness. In this book, The Death Cure, the teenagers and Thomas, the protagonist, piece by piece have put together ideas and solutions and so they all rebel and escape WICKED believing that there must be another way. Trust is also an issue that comes up because after all WICKED has done to them they simply cannot believe a word they say anymore.

            All in all, I believe that the main issue that this book brings up is justice in society and in the world. Justice and injustice is everywhere in the world and it will never change, but that doesn’t mean it is not important and that nobody should try and do something about it.