In Chap­ter Thir­ty-Five of “The Choco­late War,” the atmos­phere is elec­tric as Archie orga­nizes a ground­break­ing raf­fle at Trin­i­ty. The event, clev­er­ly dis­guised as a foot­ball ral­ly, draws a huge crowd to the ath­let­ic field, with stu­dents eager­ly sell­ing and buy­ing raf­fle tick­ets. Archie super­vis­es the set­up of an impro­vised box­ing ring, ensur­ing every stu­dent views the spec­ta­cle, a tes­ta­ment to his cun­ning manip­u­la­tion of events. The stage is a plat­form for a fight between Renault and Jan­za, both of whom stand ner­vous­ly in the ring, obliv­i­ous to the true stakes of the night.

Archie orches­trates the sce­nario with cal­cu­lat­ed pre­ci­sion, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly bait­ed Renault by entic­ing him with the idea of revenge against Jan­za, who has bul­lied him. Archie man­ages to con­vince Renault to con­front Jan­za, under the guise of a fair fight, play­ing on Renault’s desire for ret­ri­bu­tion and his innate sense of pride. How­ev­er, the entire set­up is a trap; Archie knows Renault is out­matched, hav­ing sub­tly pre­pared Jan­za to accept the fight with taunts that reflect Archie’s ever-present con­trol.

Renault, filled with a cock­tail of nerves and deter­mi­na­tion, recalls his ear­li­er thoughts of con­fronting not just Jan­za, but the insti­tu­tion and its tox­ic norms which Archie epit­o­mizes. The real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion weighs on him as he stands exposed and vul­ner­a­ble before the roil­ing crowd, his body tense with appre­hen­sion.

Mean­while, the tick­et sales for the raf­fle surge, insti­gat­ed by Archie’s promise of excite­ment, illus­trat­ing his mas­tery in manip­u­lat­ing the desires of his peers. The char­ac­ter Bri­an Cochran, tasked with over­see­ing the raf­fle, grap­ples with his anx­i­ety but even­tu­al­ly sub­mits to Archie’s author­i­ty, under­stand­ing the con­se­quences of defi­ance.

In a par­al­lel nar­ra­tive, Emile Jan­za reflects on his own moti­va­tions, des­per­ate to prove his strength and evade the rep­u­ta­tion as one of the ‘bad guys’ that Archie has foist­ed upon him. He read­ies him­self for the fight, eager for val­i­da­tion through phys­i­cal dom­i­nance, despite wrestling with self-doubt regard­ing Archie’s inten­tions and their mutu­al inter­ests.

This chap­ter deft­ly illus­trates themes of manip­u­la­tion, vio­lence, and the con­se­quences of peer pres­sure, along­side the exis­ten­tial strug­gles faced by the char­ac­ters, par­tic­u­lar­ly Renault and Jan­za, in a set­ting primed for con­flict and moral ambiva­lence.