The Wave

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Book discussion
The Wave, by Morton Rhue
Martin Björkvall NT1A

The Wave is about a teacher, Mr Ross, who one day decides to perform an experiment on his history-class. The class had seen a film about the Nazi´s and the concentration camps, and almost everyone were horrified of how many people had died in the war, for no reason at all.

At the end of the film, one student asked Mr Ross how the Germans and all the other people in the world could just sit back and watch the Nazi´s ravage. Mr Ross thought for a moment, but just as he was about to answer, the bell rang and everyone left the room. Later that evening, Mr Ross found out that he didn´t have an answer to the question, but he knew how he could demonstrate it and at the same time teach his students something important.

He were going to show them how the Nazi´s could go on with the killing and recruit new members during World War II, while ordinary people just sat and watched them, without doing anything.

To succeed in his task, he needed to make the class feel that they were a part of something big, and plan everything carefully. That´s when he founded ”The Wave”.
He discussed he thing with his wife and the next day he stood in the classroom, ready to execute his plan.

When the class entered they saw that Mr Ross had written three words on the black-board. Strength through discipline. Nobody understood what he meant, but he was going to explain to them. He told them about discipline, what it meant and how to achieve it. He let the class train to fast find their seats, sit down quickly and silently. The next day he writes ”Strength through community” on the blackboard. He tells the class that they have to be able to work together to succeed in life. The class wonders what is going on and some are becoming very curious over what this will lead to. On the third day Mr Ross had written ”Strength through action” and the very curious class wanted to know what was going on. Mr Ross told them that they had to have a greeting gesture and a name. Every time someone in the Wave met another Wave member, they would greet that member by the gesture.

After having started the Wave, Mr Ross discovered that the students´ grades were improving and even the ”class-jerk” improved much.

Most of the class thought that it was a good thing and started telling their friend who wanted to join the Wave, and it spread. But one student didn´t like it at all, Laurie Saunders. She refused to join the Wave, wrote articles in the school paper about it and tried to convince people that it was a bad thing. Nobody listened but one day, a kid was beaten up because he refused to join the Wave. The Wave got out of control for Mr Ross and the principal told him to stop the experiment...
2.1. The characters in The Wave is described pretty good. You get to know what they look like, what they do on their spare time and a little about their history.
I don´t think that there is any character in the book who doesn´t serve a purpose. Like the football team which also gets affected by the Wave, Mr Ross’ wife or the principal.

2.2. The setting is mostly set to the school where Mr Ross educates, but at certain points in the book, you end up in Mr Ross’ house, Laurie Saunders house or somewhere in a park. The author didn´t tell how the school looked like or the surroundings, at least not very good, but my impression is that Mr Ross lived with his wife in an old cottage near a bigger road. The school was a larger area with a big lawn in the centre, and a lot of corridors and plenty of classrooms and lockers.

2.3. The author is telling the story.(how do you know?)

2.4. The story itself is chronological, but it does have certain connections to the past, through its relation to World War II.

2.5. The reader gets a little more information than the characters at some times, like how and when Mr Ross plans the experiment, but not much.

2.6. I think that the message in the book is that it´s hard to stand alone against group pressure and that something that seems to be good can be quite the opposite. The Wave started as a good feeling of solidarity, but turned out totally different at the end..

2.7. Since I have both seen a movie about the Wave and worked with in previous, I wasn´t surprised over the ending, but I doubt that I would have been even if I hadn´t. I can´t say that I´m disappointed, rather glad that it didn´t end in another way, but that the Wave got stopped and everyone realised wh...