Theme Of Power In Gail Giles's 'Shattering Glass'

Power can be too much for some people to handle. History has shown us many individuals who become too powerful and begin to make decisions that have a lasting negative effect. This taste of power is something people crave and too often once they get their first taste, they are never satisfied. Gail Giles shows us in her book Shattering Glass that power can change anybody for better or worse. So as Rob’s power begins to disappear and he begins to spiral down a dark road, Giles illustrates the theme that power can suddenly develop an uncontrollable momentum of its own. In the beginning of the book the “leader” of the group Rob likes to enforce his power by having his friends Bob, Coop, and Young do things he doesn't want to do. Lance leaned

Young and Rob are in the same biology class together, but Young's weak stomach couldn't handle some stuff they are able to do like dissect frogs. So Young switches biology to Creative writing, but he knows his dad won't be happy about this decision because his dad wants him to be a Dr. So Glass says he will override the system to show him in biology the boys are then intrigued and want to see how this is done, So glass invites them over to his house to show them how he does it."I'll hack into the main program. You'll be taking creative writing, but the report card that goes out to your dad will read "Advanced Biology". I'll build in an override so that when your Creative Writing teacher enters your grade, the main program picks it up as Biology." Glass said (Giles 77). Rob then told Glass that if you can do this you can probably look at Lance’s file right. Glass thinks this is a perfect idea to get back at Lance. So he looks at lances file and sees he is allergic to strawberries, Simon sends a note to Alice that says “Hey Alice Happy Birthday I really like you and strawberries.” (Giles 83). Alice saw this note and tried to talk to Lance the next day with a strawberry cake. Lance

Rob has one more plan to get Simon to the top of the popularity in the school. It first starts with getting Young to break up with his girlfriend so Glass can take her to the dance. “If we want Glass to be class favorite we need to get Simon a girl like Ronna” Rob said, Young agreed (Giles 155). Simon took Ronna to the dance, but when he saw the group of friends he went to them to talk. “We need to talk about Rob I don't think he is who he says” Simon said. Simon told the group about who Rob really is when he hacked into the schools database. The friends didn't believe him and went on to the dance. The voting was about to get started, the first vote was for the “most wittiest”. The deputy that was announcing the votes had said that voting for the “Most Wittiest” is over. Next up “Class Favourites”. The votes have come in said the deputy the winner of most wittiest is Simon Glass, The winner for Class favorite is Rob Haynes. Rob was furious that Glass didn't win so him and the group went into the weight room. Glass told rob that he knows he's mad, but he did this because he doesn't jump when Rob tells him to only when he wants. Rob wanted to know how this even happened because he told everyone to vote for him. Simon said it was simple. “I did the same thing i did for Young's schedule, but once I hacked into the database every vote that went