Character Analysis: The Wave

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Destruction Caused By Power: How The Wave Ended Up Being Ben Ross’s Downfall The Nazi Party (aka the National Socialist German Workers’ Party) is infamous for its extreme nationalism, fascist ideologies, and mass genocides. This tragic regime in Germany lead to a disunified country, fear, and a nation left in ruins. Even if their heinous ways are frowned upon, children still learn about Nazis to understand and learn about the dangers of totalitarian dictatorships and the consequences of being a blind follower. In the novel, The Wave by Todd Strasser a teacher decides to put a twist on this classic lesson. Ben Ross invents an experiment in which students are apart of their own mini-organization in his classroom. However, Ross’s experiment …show more content…
Regardless of Ross’s good intentions of creating The Wave and convincing students of the idealistic and utopian ideals it will bring, The Wave brought more harm than good to Gordon High. It endangered all of the students because it started physical fights, bullying, threats, arguments, and racism all throughout the school. All of this drama leads to parents thinking poorly of Ross, causing a mass group of parents complaining to the principal. For instance, in the novel Principal Owens states, “I don’t care about your experiment. I’ve got teachers complaining, I’ve got parents calling me every five minutes wanting to know what the he**’s going on here, what the h*** we are we doing with their kids” (Strasser 122).This quote shows that a lot of adults are upset over what occurred in Gordon High. All of the complaining has lead his boss to have an antagonistic judgement of Ross’s character. So, this experiment ruined Ben Ross’s reputation with his co-workers, student’s parents and his boss. A good reputation is important since it determines the people who will support you in a time of need, provides motivation, inspires others, and makes you marketable for jobs. Ross has lost all of this because of The …show more content…
Although it is true that Ben Ross has learned that teens are easily influenced and to be careful in his future lesson plans he should have known these things already by being a high school teacher. For instance, Brian states, “I’ll do anything...Eat my Wheaties, join the Wave, do my homework. Anything to stop that guy” (Strasser 45). This quote shows how teens are followers. Even though Ross has learned this as a consequence of the Wave he should know teens will do anything to get what they want he should have predicted this would have gotten out of hand before he even started it. As a teacher he has witnessed fashion trends, fads, and he has been a teengaer himself. Ben Ross should have prepared for the worse. Furthermore, a lesson on how easily teens are easily influenced doesn’t outweigh the fact that he is in danger of losing his job and his ruined
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