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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Wave, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Groupthink and Coercion
History and the Past
Equality vs. Independence
Education
Summary
Analysis
Ben Ross starts up the film that he and his students are watching in class that day—a documentary about the concentration camps of the Holocaust and the awful atrocities committed there. The images on the film are shocking and frightening, and though Ross has seen this film several times, the sight of such suffering still “horrifie[s]” him. As the film rolls, Ben Ross explains the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party to his students, citing the high inflation, confused leadership, and waning social safety net in post-World War I Germany as the reason the Nazis came so quickly to power. He explains the creation and mission of the Nazis’ death camps—and how Hitler hoped they would be the “Final Solution to the Jewish problem.”
The teaching of the Holocaust in schools is a difficult subject—it’s a delicate matter, and difficult even for adults to stomach and understand the atrocities committed by the Nazi Party. Ross, however, doesn’t shy away from presenting his students with the full horror of the death camps—he wants to really impress history upon them so that they don’t forget its lessons.
Themes
When the film comes to the end and Ross flicks the lights back on, he gauges his students’ reactions to the horrible film they’ve just seen. Some, like Amy Smith and Laurie Saunders, look visibly shaken and even tearful—but others seem bored or inattentive, and Robert Billings has actually fallen asleep. When Ross asks if anyone has questions about the documentary, Amy raises her hand to ask why no ordinary Germans tried to stop the Nazis. Ross admits that he can’t answer that question, but suspects that regular Germans either were scared of the Nazis, hopeful that their rule would restore prosperity to Germany, or ignorant of what was truly going on.
The differing reactions throughout the class show just how numb most of Ross’s students are even to the most painful lessons of history. And yet, although some students seem not to care about what they’ve just seen, Ross feels invigorated by the students who do respond to the film and the lesson with emotion—and committed to helping those students seek real, practical answers to their difficult questions.
Themes
Two boys, Eric and Brad, speak up to state that there’s no way ten million people could be “slaughter[ed]” in the death camps with no one noticing, and Laurie Saunders adds her voice to theirs, outraged that the German people could have sat back and done nothing in the face of such horrific violence. Ross is forced to admit that “the behavior of the […] German population is a mystery,” and there simply aren’t answers to his students’ questions. Eric and Brad speak up and say that they’d never “let such a small minority of people rule the majority.”
As the bell rings, David Collins stands up, starving and ready for lunch. He rushes out to the cafeteria, urging Laurie to follow along, but she tells him she’ll catch up with him. As other students file out of the classroom, Laurie stays to talk to Mr. Ross—she is obviously upset. She struggles to understand why the Germans couldn’t “think for themselves,” and has a hard time believing anybody would “follow an order” so atrocious. Ross is unable to offer her any solace, and can only agree with her that what happened in the second World War was “totally sick.”
Ross loves it when his students really care about what they’re learning. Laurie’s inability to understand a key piece of history—for moral reasons, not intellectual ones—spurs Ross on as he attempts to create an exercise that will help his students grasp the magnitude of the Holocaust and the dark allure of conformity and groupthink.
Themes
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As Robert Billings wakes from his nap and hurries out of the classroom, Ross asks if the boy is getting enough sleep at home. Robert nods. Ross warns Robert that he’ll never pass if he doesn’t participate in class, and won’t graduate if he fails. Robert responds that he doesn’t care. As Robert hurries from the classroom, Ross feels torn—he knows Robert lives in the shadow of his older brother, Jeff, a former Gordon High student, but doesn’t know how to get the boy to try in the face of such inertia.
Robert is perhaps the most acute example of the lazy malaise that has taken over Gordon High. Robert doesn’t care about the past, his present, or his future—and students like Robert further motivate Ross to do something drastic that will get their attention and make them care about the world around them.
Themes
