The Wave (Todd Strasser) Summary

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The Wave Written by Morton Rhue (Todd Strasser) First published in 1981 (USA) 1984 (Germany) The story plays in the USA in April 1967 (bases on a real story) The story is about a class at the Gordon High School, which talks about the Third Reich. The pupils can’t believe that nobody did anything against the Nazis. So their history teacher Ben Ross makes an experiment with them to show his pupils, how easy people can be manipulated. In this experiment Mr. Ross acts the leader. At first Mr. Ross wants to show the pupils, what discipline means, so he writes the rule “Strength through Discipline” on the blackboard. As a result the pupils have to sit straight and stand up, when they want to say something. The next day, Ben is very surprised, when he sees, that his pupils sit straight on their places. In this moment he decides to continue this project. The following rules are “Strength through Community” and “Strength through Action”. They also get a common sign, which looks like this (‘wave’). After a few days almost everybody at school is a member of the Wave, only a few pupils are against the wave and they become outsiders. The members of the wave get violent against the others. So Mr. Ross has to decide, if his project can be continued or if it has to die… Now I want to present you the main characters of the story At first 1. Ben Ross Ben is one of the main characters in “The Wave”. He is the very engaged history teacher, who started the project. He tries to teach his lessons in a practically way, that is why the students like him very much. He is so convinced of his project, that he doesn’t follow the advice of the other teachers and his wife to stop the wave. He wants that his students recognize what the result of the experiment is and that they could understand that this is the same situation like it was

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