The Wave

The Wave
Composers use a number of techniques to make stories more meaningful. The Wave is a book published in 1981, it is a story based upon actual events that took place as a result of a history class experiment. In the novel ‘The Wave’ Martin Rhue uses a wide range of techniques such as repetition, vernacular and visual imagery to entirely highlight ‘what begins as a small movement can often become out of control and destructive’. Therefore this portrayal of the characters, themes and setting effectively gives meaning to his novel.
In the book the wave, the protagonist Mr Ross is portrayed as a history teacher at Gordan State high, the leader and creator of the wave who taught he’s class in a totalitarian way. Throughout this novel, the character of Morton rhue had been effectively achieved through the effect of his voice being in high modality. Students pressuring Mr Ross into talking in a more assertive leadership role and take the wave further page 66/67 and rather than wind it back, he accelerates it and gave him the ‘You must’ situations with obligations. This showed the technique of high modality, to show the students in Mr Ross’s class that he is the boss, ruler or leader. He created ‘The Wave’ to show he’s students what it was like to be part of something like the Nazi’s. He’s small movement became out of control and also destructive.
As observed in the text, the theme Indoctrination is one of the main causes of The Wave. In Chapter 5, Mr Ross introduced a slogan that was created to ‘grab’ the attention of he’s students: “Strength through discipline, Strength through community, Strength through action.” Repetition is the technique used through the text. The effect of ‘repetition’ is used through slogan to commence wave movement. The organisations motto is repeated in the novel to show significance in brainwashing which highlights what begins as a small movement can often become out of control. Mr Ross used the football team as an example to demonstrate the importance of the slogan. This showed the members of the wave the importance of discipline to achieving success. Despite the intention being good, giving individual absolute power will ultimately lead to the abuse of authority. The technique was very significant throughout the novel resulting to them being the establishment to the beginning of the wave moment. Ben Ross’s History Class is where everything takes place with great intentions. Visual Imagery is one of the techniques used to create the picture of the class. As perceived in page 36 of the novel ‘five neat rows of desks, seven desks to a row’ in page 36. Juxtaposition also takes place in the book when he described the classrooms as messy classrooms as he described them as neat. The effect of the visual imagery gives an idea to the reader an image representation and the entendre.
Overall, The Wave created a deep sentiment of acceptance, equality, power and belonging. It showed that something can be drawn to such attention and utterly become out of control. The various techniques used by Morton Rhue emphasised the meanings of the text in greater depth to highlight “what begins as a small movement can often become out of control and destructive.