Emotions In The Wave

Two emotions that are found in the novel The Wave by Todd Strasser are fear and satisfaction. Ben Ross decided to help his students understand how the Nazis could follow Hitler so blindly. Through the experiment, him and his students learned that it was fear. Learning that fear was the cause, it was bound that it would show up sooner or later. The first example of fear was when an anonymous student wrote to Laurie Saunders a letter titled Welcome to the Wave - or Else. The student wrote:

“This senior started telling us how great The Wave was. He said that the more kids who joined, the better it would get… I didn’t join. He kept asking me why I didn’t want to join. I just told him I didn’t feel like it. Then he got mad. He said pretty soon …show more content…
This had proved that “The Wave was scary.” (85) The second example is found just a little bit later in the story. David Collins - Laurie’s ex-boyfriend - was trying to convince her that she should stop writing mean things about The Wave in the school’s newspaper; however, she continued to refuse. All of the sudden, he push her to make her shut up. After he came out of his “trance” and realized that he had hurt Laurie, he became afraid of himself and afraid of The Wave. David then realized that The Wave was not as good as he thought it was. (Pg. 113-114) The second emotion in the novel was satisfaction. Mr. Ross had only started The Wave a few days ago. However, his students were telling him how much they loved The Wave. One of students said he felt “like [he was a] part something… Something great.” Another responded by saying “I know just how [he] feels. It’s like being born again.” Still after, another said, “I’m proud of The Wave.” (Pg. 61) All of these students were satisfied with how things were and how they were going: They didn’t want anything to change. Another example of satisfaction occurred just pages later. Laurie Saunders had just shown her best friend Amy the newspaper she was about to release. After reading it thoroughly, Amy …show more content…
Yes, you have a leader!... There is your leader!... There is no National Wave Youth Movement. There is no leader. But if there was, he would have been it. Do you see what you’ve become? Do you see where you ertr headed? How far would you have gone? Take a look at your future!... You thought you were so special!... Better than everyone outside of this room. You traded your freedom for what you said was equality. But you turned your equality into superiority over non-Wave members. You accepted the group’s will over you own convictions, no matter who you had to hurt to do it. Oh, some of you thought you could walk away at any moment. But did you? Did any of you try it? Yes, you all would have made good Nazis… You would have put on the uniforms, turned your heads, and allowed your friend and neighbors to persecuted and destroyed. You say it could never happen again. But look how close you came. Threatening those who wouldn’t join you, preventing non-Wave members from sitting with you at football games. Fascism isn’t something those other people did, it is right here, in all of us. You ask how could the German people do nothing as millions of innocent human beings were murdered? How could they claim they weren’t involved? What causes people to deny their own histories?... If history repeats itself, you will all want to deny what happened to you in The Wave. But, if our experiment had been successful - and I think you can see that it has - you