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The Wave | Themes

This Study Guide consists of approximately 33 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Wave.
This section contains 334 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Purchase our The Wave Study Guide

The Wave Themes

Permanence

What could be more permanent than a towering cliff? Expressions such as "solid as the rock of Gibraltar" seek to compare human endeavors to the enduring solidity of just such a cliff. Yet, in "The Wave," we see that this monstrous edifice, two hundred feet high, may last a long while, but—in the end—it falls in upon itself. Nothing, this story seems to suggest, is truly permanent.

Time

Time changes everything. The sea could not have caused the cliff to fall in upon itself in a day or a month or a year—it took thousands of years. Time is the catalyst for change, and it is inevitable. It moves inexorably forward, allowing the events that occur within time to proceed and then become the past. At the end of the story, there is no more cliff, just a slope down to the water's edge and, although the sea's constant pounding...
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This section contains 334 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)
Purchase our The Wave Study Guide
Copyrights
The Wave from BookRags and Gale's For Students Series. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.
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