The Chocolate War


 





The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier is a novel about a freshman in high school named Jerry who has a confrontation with a gang, The Vigils.  Archie is the leader of the gang and their goal is to cause pshychological harm on students as they are forced to compete.  For example, Jerryś friene, ¨The Goober¨, is challenged to sneak into a classroom and loosen the screws on the chairs and desks.  The Goober suffers from great guilt when everything falls apart the next day during school when the students go to class.  Jerry´s assignment is to refuse to sell chocolates in the school fundraiser.  At first, Brother Leon, the teacher in charge of the sale, is shocked when he hears this, but eventually finds out that The Vigils are behind it.  At first, Brother Leon is angry, but discovers Jerry is allowed to sell the chocolates after ten days.  However, even though Jerry intended to sell the chocolates, he told Brother Leon ¨no" after the ten days.  The Vigils see this as defiance of his assignment.  The Vigils ask Jerry to sell the chocolates and he still refuses.  The school begins to see Jerry as a hero for defying the Vigil´s orders.  Brother Leon gets upset too because the chocolate sales are down because come to find out he secretly used money that didn´t belong to him to buy the chocolates and he needed to pay it back.  Brother Leon confronts Archie angry about the assignment he gave to Jerry.  So Archie gives in and begins to sell the chocolates.  They quickly begin to sell.  Archie and The Vigils begin tormenting Jerry for continuing to refuse to sell the chocolates.  Archie organizes a raffle to witness a fight between Jerry and the school bully, Emile.  The students that buy the raffle tickets get to write a boxing move on the back.  Emile outsizes Jerry and begins punching him over over as he falls to the ground.  The fight is interupted by Brother Leon and another teacher.  Jerry is left with a broken jaw and Brother Leon makes sure that Archie is not punished.  In the end, Jerry is left feeling hopeless about his future.

The Chocolate War is a good book for teens to examine moral issues.  It has alot of emotion.  Jerry is constantly getting picked on and beaten up.  I felt that it was dark and negative.  This may be for you if you don´t thrive on happy endings.

Cormier, R. (1994). The chocolate war. Harpercollins.




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