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Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-7

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Amazement Park

Amazement Park symbolizes the deceptive nature of Asterion. Designed by Lillian Nicely in the late 1940s, it was built as a trap to lure sacrifices to the monster and disguise the deaths of these many casualties. Lillian writes in her diary of her “brilliant new plan,” “a garish, cheerful solution” that features “[l]ow entertainment for the low classes” and is “perfect for [the Asterion families’] needs” (192). On the surface, Amazement Park was advertised as a harmless and entertaining venue for families, and the founders were even praised for their generosity in granting people free admission for one week every seven years. However, the park was secretly designed to be a deadly trap, and the owners’ generosity was part of the bait to draw more victims in. Notably, the park’s name, “Amazement,” also contains the word “maze,” hinting at the treacherous labyrinth concealed within. Similarly, the posters for the park urge people to “Get Lost in the Fun!” (3), obliquely alluding to the fact that the park was designed to trap people. As the narrative openly admits, “The maps were useless, the You Are Here guides impossible to find. It was a park designed to swallow” (3). As the novel progresses, it eventually becomes clear that a literal monster is doing the “swallowing” of the lost visitors. Just like the rest of Asterion, Amazement Park is a façade for evil itself.

The Monster

The monster in the maze of Asterion represents the evil and corruption at the heart of the town. Hide uses a supernatural creature to serve as a physical manifestation of the evil deeds that humans are capable of committing. Inspired by the Greek myth of the Minotaur, the monster requires human sacrifices in exchange for maintaining the wealth, influence, and prosperity of the founding families of Asterion. Notably, the contestants who truly are descended from the founders and are physically capable of seeing the monster are frightened and mesmerized by it, and Mack even goes so far as to view it as an embodiment of death. As she reflects, “In its mouth, oblivion. A velvet black so deep and complete she has never seen its like, never will. And beyond the black […] the cold white pulse of a distant star” (225). Though the monster has been blinded, it still slowly hunts and devours its park-bound prey, and Mack realizes that part of its success is due to people’s desperate attempts to ignore it. She realizes that “[p]eople pretend things aren’t wrong, even when they can feel the truth, because they’re too afraid of what it means to look right at the horror, right at the wrongness, to face the truth in all its terrible glory” (163). To defeat the monster, people must first acknowledge that it exists. With this aspect of the story, White draws an implicit parallel to the many evils in society, which are often ignored out of the public’s misguided desire to pretend that all is well with the world.

Although the monster is an antagonistic force, Mack comes to have compassion for it, especially when she observes the contrast between “the terrible scarring where they put out its eyes” and the softness of its “incongruously delicate ears” (224). Seeing these details, she thinks that on some level, the monster is “pathetic,” and she decides that she “can’t hate it” because “whatever those families did to summon it, to make their deal, she can’t imagine it agreed. It doesn’t seem to have the capacity for consent” (225). Thus, Mack’s inner reflections reveal that the true villains are the founders and heirs of Asterion, not the unreasoning force of the monster. Ultimately, White argues that humanity is the true monster.

The Nicely Home

Linda Nicely’s well-manicured family home represents the façade of propriety that hides Asterion’s malicious core of corruption. When Ava, LeGrand, and Mac stumble into the home, they are taken aback by the overly tended garden and lawn, which contrasts with the untamed wilds of the park. Even some of the decorative rocks in the yard are “manufactured,” and one even bears the deeply ironic inscription “Live, love, laugh” (184). The clichéd optimism of the phrase further highlights the violence and darkness of Asterion’s rituals, which require carnage and death to sustain this home and town. Once inside the house, Mack is uncomfortable with Linda’s embroidered handkerchiefs and her china hutch filled with cute porcelain figures. She thinks, “Houses like this always feel vaguely accusatory. Every perfect line, every well-chosen accessory says You don’t belong here” (184-85). She sees Linda’s collections as evidence of shallow excess, condemning the uselessness of the extravagant items as being “almost obscene” (186).

However, Linda perceives none of these class-based nuances; she is proud of her home and believes that it represents her place in society. Even when she is being threatened by the survivors, she is more worried about maintaining control over her physical environment, as when she orders Mack not to touch the china hutch. To Linda, Ava is nothing but “a nasty girl” (217), and the Asterion heir utterly refuses to see the sacrificial victims as humans; in her mind, they are not important because they do not belong to her social class and have no place in her world of nice, expensive things. Her obsession with preserving her home represents the Asterion families’ larger goal of preserving a certain social order at any cost—as long as they are not the ones paying the required price.