The Chocolate War Review
The Chocolate War: The Refused Chocolate
Do you love to read unpredictable books that always want you to turn to the next page? If you do, then The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier is book you would love to read. This story is good overall, but the plot or the storyline could have been better.
The Chocolate War is a story about this new high school student at Trinity high school. He wants to be apart of the football team but that is it. Jerry Renault is in a situation here. The school is having a chocolate sale, in which he wants no part in. The other students start to make fun of him and beat him up in order to make him sell the chocolates, because it is said to be a Trinity tradition. He wants to play football but everyone, even his teammates, try to murder him so he will start selling the chocolates. They keep beating him up, because to sell the chocolates is part of school spirit and Trinity tradition. So, because he is the only different one, they want to pretty much beat him up. The Vigils is a school group That the teachers find it better to deal with if ignored. The gave an assignment to Jerry saying to sell the most chocolates in the whole school. He said no. No one has ever said no to the Vigils. On top of that the whole school hates him for it too
All else I can tell you about the book is that Robert Cormier maybe much of a curser, but he can make a decent book. Not saying I did not like it, but the ending left you hanging and it was missing a few things in the book. Cormier puts the storyline in a way that you just want to keep reading even though it is not that good of a book. I like Robert Cormier, because it looks look that he loves to make unexpected twists. For example, he writes down that they just beat him up in every way possible. Then the next day the teacher, Brother Leon, asked him if he wanted the chocolates to sell them. I do not know how he still said no.
Will Jerry still stand up? Or will he finally give in to the chocolates? Will he get sent to the hospital? Or will he get transferred to another school? If you do not mind any curse words or inappropriate statements every once in a while then I recommend you read The Chocolate War and see what happens. I honestly do not recommend it for the curse words and inappropriate statements.
The Chocolate War Overview
The headmaster of Trinity College asks Archie Costello, the leader of the Vigils, a secret society that rules the school, to help with the selling of 20,000 boxes of chocolates in the annual fund-raising effort. Archie sees the chance of adding to his power - he is the Assigner, handing out to the boys tasks to be performed if they are to survive in the school. Freshman, Jerry Renault, a newcomer to the corrupt regime, refuses to sell chocolates. Enormous mental and physical pressure is put on him but he will not give in - the result is an inevitable, explosive tragedy.
The Chocolate War Specifications
Does Jerry Renault dare to disturb the universe? You wouldn't think that his refusal to sell chocolates during his school's fundraiser would create such a stir, but it does; it's as if the whole school comes apart at the seams. To some, Jerry is a hero, but to others, he becomes a scapegoat--a target for their pent-up hatred. And Jerry? He's just trying to stand up for what he believes, but perhaps there is no way for him to escape becoming a pawn in this game of control; students are pitted against other students, fighting for honor--or are they fighting for their lives? In 1974, author Robert Cormier dared to disturb our universe when this book was first published. And now, with a new introduction by the celebrated author, The Chocolate War stands ready to shock a new group of teen readers.
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A Dark Fable - Arkansas Reader -
The enjoyment of fiction usually requires the suspension of disbelief. To enjoy this novel as portrayal of something that could happen in a 1970s parochial school requires that you do more than suspend your disbelief. Take your disbelief, bind it, gag it, blindfold it, stuff cotton into its ears and lock it in the trunk of your car. Then and only then can you read this novel as a slice of life.
However, you can accept a secret (not so secret) society (the Vigils) in a Catholic school having power out of proportion to their numbers; the teachers having full knowledge of their existence and activities; along with a headmaster want-to-be with the ambition of a third-world dictator, if you view this novel as a dark fable. One that would be more at home in a Brothers Grimm setting.
The influence of the powerful is then magnified and unquestioned as in the olden times, not the rebellious 70's.
Motivations become a little clearer when you realize the understory. Those with ambition that are in power wish to remain in power. Those with ambition that are out of power wish to gain power. Both will do anything, even work with each other, for that power and to destroy anyone who threatens that power.
Enter Jerry Renault, someone with no ambition caught between the striving factions. When he defies one, he defies the other and neither can tolerate his defiance. Working together they make his life miserable and then destroy it, almost costing him his life.
One review stated the moral was to "give up". Another, might be that "one person can begin to change the system, but one person alone cannot. If you choose to fight the established power structure, be prepared to lose. Not just the battle, but everything you hold dear".
A good read, but only three stars.
Sick, bleak and disturbing - Wayne M. Malin - Malden MA
Poor Jerry Renault. He's a teenager--his mom has died, his father and him have no connection and he's trying to fit in at a new school. There's a chocolate sale at the school where students are forced to sell chocolates. A group of school thugs who call themselves the Vigils tell Jerry NOT to sell chocolates. He doesn't...but then they tell him to sell them and he refuses. Jerry's life quickly becomes a living hell and it leads up to a revoltingly violent and sick ending.
I had to read Cormier when I was in college. I read "I Am the Cheese" (which I thought was pretty good) and I read this on my own. This book depressed me to an incredible degree. For days afterwards I was like a zombie--I couldn't get the finmal sequence out of my mind. Even now over 20 years later it STILL bothers me. Seriously--what is the point of this book? The message for teenagers seems to be--conform. Don't fight back cause it could get you killed. Jerry ISN'T killed, as the sequel tells us, but he's beaten to a point where he's near death and Cormier describes it in loving detail. It's actually suggested that Jerry has an eye crushed when he's hit and his face is covered with blood. Seriously--WHY??? Sick and pointless. One of my friends read it and said it could never happen so it didn't bother him--but that's not how I felt. I would never allow a kid to read this book. Avoid. The sequel "Beyond the Chocolate War" is more of the same. And Jerry is beaten up AGAIN!
It's okay to do your own thing so long as it's everyone else's thing too!? - Amanda Pike - NY
I was made to read The Chocolate War back in my early teens. I remember someone telling me that it had loosely been based on actual events. I think that added to the bitter taste it left in my mouth.
The Chocolate war, as I recall it, tells the story of a boy in a very posh school some thirty or forty years ago. I remember the film 'updated it' by having it set in the eighties and where he once ran into a hippie one one scene he now runs into a punk. But I digress.
The protagonist is pressured into selling / buying chocolates for the school. The school's head master (or dean) pretty much recruits the school's thugs to enforce the forced 'volunteer' work. The details of this are blurry to me now all these years later but the ending is still vividly clear in my mind.
Our hero tries very hard to be an individual, to do this own thing and be independent, trying to stand up for his own rights out of principle but then...
Well, at the end of the book the protagonist gets severely beaten and it ends on the note 'It's okay to do your own thing so long as it's everyone else's thing too.' I understand what this book tried to do but all it seemed to do was frighten my fellow classmates of the time into conformity. This is the sort of book that actually discourages free thought and individuality. It's stark, bleak and hopeless. For a fourteen-year-old reading it the only message they get is 'If you try to be yourself around other kids you'll get your ass kicked.' What sort of lesson is that?
I'm all for reading the classics with social commentaries but I don't think this should be required reading for early teens. I think, instead, a more hopeful one taking pride in being an individual should be read instead. The adventures of Robin Hood would be a good example. Children in their early teens are already confused and dealing with peer pressure. And being told 'Be yourself.' can't work if your required reading shows a child being pummeled for just that.
So it's not so much that I think The Chocolate Wars are a bad book but looking back on it now at age twenty-eight I don't think it should be the required reading of teenagers.
By the way, I am a book lover, but you're going to find most of my negative reviews here are going to be toward books I was required to read growing up and how my teacher / fellow students responded to them such as The Old Man and the Sea and Lord of the Flies. Though there were some required readings I did like a lot such as Farenheit 451 and Escape to White Mountains.
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