The Wave is a 1981 novel based on the "Third Wave" experiment in which school students willingly partook in a simulated fascist regime. After failing to explain how Germans could have allowed the Nazi Party to rise to power, Mr. Ross organizes his classroom around slogans extolling discipline, strength and power. Although David and Laurie question the movement and the animosity it causes, most students accept it blindly until Mr. Ross finally exposes the experiment, claiming that their leader could just as well have been Hitler.
Bridging off mob mentality: fitting in is as important a theme as any considering a movement is nothing without people; for without people to carry the movement forward it becomes nothing more ta. The reason the Wave was met with such success is because it made people feel like they belonged, like they were becoming a part of something higher than themselves. Another important reason people were so eager to join the Wave was because many of their friends were doing it, and they didn't want to be left out of such a huge fad.
It is said that absolute power corrupts absolutely, which appears to be the case for Ben Ross. Aside from overall student enthusiasm, one huge reason as to why the Wave lasted as long as it did was because Ben Ross felt like he was being respected for the first time. He loved how eager his students were to learn his material, but mostly he was in love with the power that came with their respect. And according to Ben, "it's amazing how much more they like you when you make decisions for them". It is through the Wave that Ben is enlarging his own ego while crushing his students' individuality to make them function like a single unit.
An old saying has it that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, and this seems to very well be the case for those involved in the Wave. The students don't understand why the Nazis did what they did and some of them downright disregard the events ever having happened. And those who are aware that these events actually did happen doubt the possibility of something as horrific as the Holocaust ever happening again, though little did the students know; the Wave was beginning to turn into a mini Third Reich.
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