The Wave by Todd Strasser (Book Analysis): Detailed Summary, Analysis and Reading Guide

By Bright Summaries

Unlock the more straightforward side of The Wave with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!

This engaging summary presents an analysis of The Wave by Todd Strasser, a novel based on real events in an American high school in the 1960s. When Ben Ross, an ambitious young history teacher, is teaching his class about life in Nazi Germany, he is at a loss to explain how so many ordinary Germans stood by while their government committed atrocities. He devises a social experiment to demonstrate the power of authority figures and peer pressure, but before long the movement he has created spirals out of control and becomes more influential then he ever could have imagined. Todd Strasser is an award-winning young adult author, and is known in particular for his thought-provoking treatment of themes including violence, nuclear war and school shootings.

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This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you:
• A complete plot summary
• Character studies
• Key themes and symbols
• Questions for further reflection

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• Language: English
• Publisher: BrightSummaries.com
• Release date: Oct 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9782806270153

Book preview

AMERICAN NOVELIST AND SHORT STORY WRITER

Born in New York in 1950.

Notable works:

The Wave (1981), novel

Give a Boy a Gun (2000), novel

Can’t Get There from Here (2004),novel

Todd Strasser was born in New York and travelled around Europe as a young man, before returning to the USA to study literature. He began his writing career with articles and short stories for The New Yorker and The New York Times, and his first novel, Angel Dust Blues, was published in 1978. His books are aimed at young adult readers and address themes such as violence, the problems teenagers face, and social issues. He has also worked on the novelisations of several films, including Home Alone, Jumanji and Free Willy. He shot to global fame with The Wave, and has also enjoyed great success with his Help! I’m Trapped… series (1993-2001).

A STORY INSPIRED BY REAL LIFE

Genre: novel

Reference edition: Strasser, T. (2013) The Wave. New York: Ember.

1st edition: 1981

Themes: experiments, Second World War, Nazism, power, fear, dictatorship, ideology, extremism

The Wave was published in 1981 and is based on real events that took place at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California in 1967. A history teacher, Ron Jones, began an experiment to illustrate how fascist regimes work and demonstrate the attitudes of the German people during the Second World War (1939-1945), but before long his experiment turned into a dangerous game about a leader’s power