Cover of The Chocolate War
    Novel

    The Chocolate War

    by testsuphomeAdmin
    The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier follows Jerry Renault, a high school student who refuses to participate in his school's annual chocolate sale fundraiser. His act of defiance sparks a cruel campaign of bullying and manipulation, leading him to question authority, conformity, and the power of resistance.

    In Chap­ter Twen­ty-Five of “The Choco­late War,” Jer­ry Renault finds him­self sum­moned before The Vig­ils, an intim­i­dat­ing group at Trin­i­ty High School. The meet­ing kicks off with a pecu­liar, ran­som note-style sum­mons that sets a child­ish yet threat­en­ing tone, typ­i­cal of Archie Costel­lo’s manip­u­la­tion. As Jer­ry enters a stor­age room filled with the echoes of boys play­ing sports in the near­by gym, the atmos­phere thick­ens with ten­sion as Archie, seat­ed at a table adorned with the school’s col­ors, presents a box of choco­lates.

    Archie’s inter­ac­tion with Jer­ry is laced with mock­ery and psy­cho­log­i­cal games. After invit­ing Jer­ry to par­take in a choco­late, Archie abrupt­ly piv­ots the dis­cus­sion to Jer­ry’s fail­ure to sell the choco­lates for a school fundrais­er. Jer­ry’s protests and expla­na­tions of his reluc­tance to par­tic­i­pate in the choco­late sale lead to a con­fronta­tion­al atmos­phere, filled with laugh­ter and teas­ing from the oth­er mem­bers of The Vig­ils. They call out num­bers, brag­ging about their sales, cre­at­ing a stark con­trast to Jer­ry’s admis­sion of zero sales.

    Archie refus­es to acknowl­edge Jer­ry’s per­son­al rea­sons for non­com­pli­ance, assert­ing that The Vig­ils oper­ate with­out secrets, thrust­ing Jer­ry into an uncom­fort­able spot­light. As Jer­ry con­tem­plates the recent pos­i­tive devel­op­ments in his life—football, school, and a girl named Ellen Barrett—he feels a pro­found sense of dread and hope­less­ness dur­ing the meet­ing.

    In a cli­mac­tic turn, Archie deliv­ers an ulti­ma­tum: Jer­ry must accept the choco­lates and sell them. Obie, anoth­er Vig­il mem­ber, secret­ly rev­els in watch­ing Jer­ry stand up to Archie, real­iz­ing that Jer­ry is unlike­ly to com­ply. The chap­ter con­cludes as Archie dis­miss­es the meet­ing, leav­ing Jer­ry vul­ner­a­ble while hint­ing at unre­solved ten­sions between indi­vid­ual desires and the group’s demands, framed with­in the over­lap­ping themes of peer pres­sure and per­son­al integri­ty. Jerry’s qui­et defi­ance fore­shad­ows impend­ing con­flict, estab­lish­ing a piv­otal moment in the nar­ra­tive where he must decide between acqui­es­cence and resis­tance.

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