Full Tilt

Each ride represents one of Blake’s fears and provides him with an important lesson. As Blake says, “[Cassandra] gets inside your head somehow. She takes what she finds there and whips it up into this” (55). The carousel’s animals are various college mascots because Blake is worried about his upcoming move to school, for example. Cassandra’s rides exploit his fear of flying via the Kamikaze and his lack of self-confidence in the mirror maze, as well.

Each ride is a symbol of Blake’s central weakness: fear of risk. This is most notable in the park’s last ride. Because Blake is risk-averse, Cassandra “knows every move [he will] make and every direction [he will] turn. [He] was too predictable” (173). Blake must force himself to take risks to survive, but he cannot move to Quinn’s chaotic extreme: “She’d be able to predict Quinn’s moves as well as mine. The only way to outsmart her was to outsmart ourselves” (174).

Each ride provides a lesson that leads Blake to success in his journey. In the case of the final ride, Blake learns to find balance with forces both external and internal. With each subsequent ride—and each subsequent lesson—Blake faces a physical manifestation of aspects of his trauma.

Despite the intensity of the park’s rides, Blake finds himself most affected by another aspect of Cassandra’s creation: “I will never forget The Works. That will live on in my nightmares” (158).

After choosing to remember his actions on the day of the bus incident, he watches the bus slide over the cliff and sees that “The rear wheels of the bus were high off the ground, so high that from here, I could see the spinning driveshaft and transmission. The Works” (189). Blake’s final glimpse of the bus that held his teachers and friends physically manifests as The Works.

The Works also represents Blake’s future if he continues to live in fear. In his decision about whether to attend college, Blake suggests that he might instead “get a part-time job and take some classes at a junior college.” Quinn responds: “when you actually get the chance to have a life, you’re too scared to take it” (33). Avoiding the risk of college will ensure Blake a rote life, one void of adventure. The Works represents this mundanity. The enslaved riders in The Works seem to be “growing out of [the machinery]” and are “as much a part of the machine as the cogs […] Their eyes—their souls—had been voided into mechanical numbness” (159). If Blake cannot risk going to college in his real life, he will face the same unfulfilling future.