The book, Butterfly Revolution, written by William Butler, is a book about a journey through a revolution in summer camp. The revolution takes a turn for the worst when Frank Reiley and the rest of his followers begin doing bad things. A revolution only works if everybody included is fighting for the same cause.
Frank Reiley is the leader of the revolution. Throughout the revolution, Frank became more of a dictator than a good and friendly leader. He starts to make bad decisions that hurt people. He was becoming a modern Hitler, a man who discriminated and killed off many innocent Jewish people. He starts to fight for a bad cause and he doesn’t notice it. He feels he is doing the kids at the camp a favor, instead he is putting them in a lot of harm. By becoming a dictator, most of the kids at High Pines camp became very mad at him, just like how some German siblings tried to rebel against Hitler, by writing and publishing fliers that questioned Hitler’s ideals and rule. Everybody had lost respect for their leader, Frank Reiley. He started to tell lies. For examples, he said that Don Egriss is a big traitor of the revolution, just because Don wanted to leave camp. This accusation relates to when Hitler killed off many Jewish people just because of their religion. Frank then sent Don to the brig, the detention room, for being counterrevolutionary. Another reason people lost respect for Frank is because he used decent so people wouldn’t turn counterrevolutionary. Frank had told people if they donate money to the revolutionary bond, then they would get paid back in return. No one got their money back. Also, Winston Weyn, a 13 year old boy got really heated and mad at the actions of Frank Reiley. Frank Reiley just let some girls from Low Pines, the girl’s camp, hang Don Egriss, Winston’s friend. After Winston complained to Frank, Frank told him. “I had to let the girls have Don, too many kids in both camps either wanted to kill Don or turn him over to the police, anyhow, there was a danger of a counterrevolutionary just because of Don.”
Things started to go really bad when kids from both camps noticed there leader had broken many promises he had made. In the beginning, Frank stated that the revolution was supposed to bring fun to the camp and that no one would get hurt. Little kids are having no fun. They are only able to swim in the river and do other things they used to do before the revolution. Also, three people died by the revolution, Don Egriss, John Mason, and Mr. Warren. Each leader, Reiley and Hitler, brought violence to their reign of leadership.
Frank Reiley had lost even more respect from kids because he started to bribe them. He stated, that if you were high enough in rank and have contributed to the revolution, only you, the few people, will get paid. By doing this, he is bribing others to stay with the revolution and stay true to the leadership of the revolution.
By loss of respect for your leader, not keeping promises the leader has made, and illegal bribery, has led to chaos and turmoil of the revolution. The only way a revolution can work is to have everybody fighting for the same cause, but this did not happen, which led to the failure of the revolution
