The Wave Chapters 15–17 Summary & Analysis

Chapters 15–17

Summary: Chapter 15

Mr. Ross leaves school halfway through the day and goes home. His wife, Christy, tells him that teachers are upset and questions whether he truly knows what he’s doing. Mr. Ross admits that The Wave has morphed beyond his original goals and it’s affected him, but he needs to see it through to fulfill his original goal of teaching students what could be the most valuable lesson of their lives.

At school, many are glad to hear the truth about The Wave, but others are not. Someone paints “enemy” on Laurie’s locker and seems to follow her in the hallway after school. Outside, Brian and David try to get Laurie to stop printing dissent against The Wave. When she protests, David angrily throws her down in the grass, after which he immediately realizes what The Wave has done to him.

That evening, Christy warns her husband that if he doesn’t end The Wave, Principal Owens will. Mr. Ross knows she’s right, acknowledging that he relished his rise to power in the movement. David and Laurie unexpectedly visit, urging Mr. Ross to end the experiment as students seem brainwashed and many are scared. Pleased they’ve realized this on their own, Mr. Ross promises them he’ll end The Wave tomorrow.

Summary: Chapter 16

Principal Owens tells Mr. Ross that teachers and parents are complaining about The Wave. Mr. Ross admits the experiment went too far but explains he needs the rest of the day to see his experiment through.

In class, Mr. Ross announces The Wave is a nationwide project to create a youth movement to demonstrate to the county how to form an improved society. He details the country’s rising inflation, unemployment, and crime rates. Mr. Ross explains that students must fix their country by demonstrating what they’ve learned: discipline, community, and action. Mr. Ross states that there will be an assembly that afternoon where The Wave’s leader will appear on TV. When David and Laurie protest, Mr. Ross sends both to Principal Owens’s office.

David and Laurie plead with Principal Owens to intervene, but he insists everything will be OK. David realizes how wrong he was to go along with The Wave, and Laurie recalls what started it: their classroom film about the Holocaust and Nazi Germany and how no one understood how it could have been allowed to happen. David, who said that this type of situation could never repeat, now sees that it happened right in his school, and he was complicit. The two decide to attend the assembly.

Summary: Chapter 17

At the assembly, wave banners decorate the walls. Students check membership cards at the doors. Mr. Ross is awestruck by how quickly students organized. Robert makes sure guards stand at the doors, which are locked. The crowd chants The Wave’s slogan. Mr. Ross stands on stage and turns on the TV sets, which are blank. After a frustrated student yells that there is no leader, guards rush him out of the auditorium. David and Laurie slip through the opened doors.

Mr. Ross then states that the students do have a leader, and Alex and Carl reveal a film of Adolf Hitler. As the film plays, students see scenes of young people who willingly followed the German dictator. Mr. Ross orders students to look at what they’ve become, saying that Wave members believed they were superior to non-members and traded in their freedoms for a false sense of equality. Mr. Ross points out that The Wave member, like the Nazis, took people’s rights away, threatened and even hurt non-members, blindly followed orders, and failed to think for themselves. Mr. Ross admits that he also learned invaluable lessons from his experiment.

After Mr. Ross’s speech, stunned students leave the auditorium, discarding membership cards as they pass. Amy hugs Laurie and David comforts Brian and Eric. David apologizes to Mr. Ross for not trusting him, but Mr. Ross says his distrust showed he and Laurie learned the intended lesson. Mr. Ross then offers to take a sobbing Robert out for a meal, saying they need to talk.

Analysis: Chapters 15–17

By Chapter 15, Mr. Ross is fully aware that his experiment is out of control. As Christy cautioned in Chapter 5, he has “created a monster” that, like Frankenstein, has resorted to violence. Someone paints the word “enemy” on Laurie’s locker and pursues her in the hallway and later, spurred by Brian’s demands, David even detains Laurie and throws her down on the grass. Still, when David and Laurie visit Mr. Ross’s home and plead with him to end The Wave, he knows that his experiment has been a success and that David and Laurie have learned its lessons. He has successfully simulated living conditions for German citizens in Nazi Germany and, based on real-life experience, led students to find answers to their questions about how the Holocaust could have occurred. In Chapter 16, David also sees how naive he had been when he first watched Mr. Ross’s film on the Holocaust. He sees now that the Holocaust is not simply a part of history, but something that, unless prevented, can happen again in places where fascism is allowed to fester and rise.

Many of Gordon High’s students are yet to learn these lessons, though, so Mr. Ross determines to see his experiment through to its necessary conclusion. In Chapter 16, after getting the green light from Principal Owens, Mr. Ross convinces students that they’re part of a nationwide youth brigade, one that’s needed to fix all that currently ails the United States. His description of a country in disrepair, plagued by high unemployment and inflation, recalls the state of post-World War I Germany, whose dire conditions created fertile ground for fascism to take root. Students at this time are so swept up in The Wave’s momentum and promise that, despite David and Laurie’s pleas for their fellow students see through Mr. Ross’s lies, they eagerly anticipate the day’s assembly where, Mr. Ross promises, the movement’s leader will be revealed. And revealed he is. In the concluding chapter of The Wave and powerful climax, Alex and Carl help Mr. Ross display a giant image of Adolf Hitler. The scene is shocking and instantaneously yields its desired effect. Students instantly see they’ve been complicit in a fascistic, totalitarian regime that resembles Nazism.

Mr. Ross’s speech to students may appear harsh, but he deems its tone necessary to teach students what he knows will likely be the most valuable lessons of their lives. Human beings, unfortunately, have a dark side that cannot be ignored. We must not trade freedoms and liberties for false promises of equality and community. We must not be seduced by power. We must stay informed, think for ourselves, and question dangerous forms of authority. We must do the hard work of preserving democracy rather than falling for quick fixes. We must stand up for the persecuted and be vigilant against allowing future genocides to occur. Ultimately, Mr. Ross shows students that to truly answer the questions they initially asked about how German citizens behaved during the Holocaust, they must look inward and at their behavior. “Fascism isn’t something those other people did,” he tells students, “it is right here, in all of us.”

However painful, the lessons are received, including by Mr. Ross himself. Stunned students toss their membership cards into the trash and file out of the auditorium. Amy and Laurie reconcile, as do Eric, Brian, and David, who, however awkwardly, vows to never forget what happened, again alluding to the Holocaust’s slogan of “Never again.” Robert, Mr. Ross knows, has the most to lose and is also the student who likely needs the most guidance to process the events. Mr. Ross, then, compliments Robert on his suit and invites him out for a meal so they can discuss what happened. The gesture reveals how much Mr. Ross cares about Robert and humanity as a whole and recalls his initial desire to educate students about history’s crimes so they won’t be repeated.

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