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 of “The Choco­late War,” the chaos in Broth­er Jacques’ U.S. His­to­ry class serves as a demon­stra­tion of the pow­er dynam­ics at Trin­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­trolled by The Vig­ils, a group of stu­dents led by Archie. The chap­ter opens with the abrupt onset of pan­de­mo­ni­um as Obie and his class­mates respond to a sig­nal orches­trat­ed by Archie: when­ev­er Broth­er Jacques men­tions the word “envi­ron­ment,” the stu­dents erupt into a ridicu­lous dis­play of ener­gy, jump­ing up and down in silence.

    Broth­er Jacques, a young and inex­pe­ri­enced teacher, is clear­ly unset­tled by this absurd behav­ior, which has been occur­ring for more than a week. He does not inter­vene, per­haps believ­ing it to be mere­ly a prank that will run its course. Mean­while, Obie reflects on the absur­di­ty of the situation—everyone knows the stunts are the result of Archie’s manip­u­la­tions, yet they choose to pre­tend igno­rance. Obie feels drained and frus­trat­ed, caught between his role with­in The Vig­ils and his dis­dain for Archie’s antics.

    Archie, see­ing the broad­er con­text of envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns, engages his class­mates in this far­ci­cal cam­paign against Broth­er Jacques. Dur­ing an assign­ment dis­closed by Archie, the objec­tive is to reduce the teacher’s vocab­u­lary by mak­ing the class mock him every time he uses “envi­ron­ment.” Despite his reluc­tance, Obie plays along, know­ing he will be tasked with prod­ding Broth­er Jacques into men­tion­ing the word. The entire stunt becomes a source of frus­tra­tion for Obie, as he grows increas­ing­ly tired of han­dling Archie’s whims and ensur­ing the pranks unfold as planned.

    How­ev­er, as the chap­ter pro­gress­es, Broth­er Jacques unex­pect­ed­ly gains the upper hand by turn­ing the stu­dents’ mock­ery back on them after he’s tipped off about the sit­u­a­tion. As he now encour­ages the class to jump to the word, Obie real­izes he is no longer part of the intend­ed joke. Anger and embar­rass­ment surge through him as he leaves the class­room, vow­ing revenge against Archie, who stands smirk­ing out­side, com­plete­ly unfazed by the chaos he has orches­trat­ed. This chap­ter high­lights the instal­la­tion of author­i­ty and resis­tance, show­cas­ing the strug­gle between the stu­dents’ rebel­lion and the teach­ers’ respons­es in the micro­cosm of Trin­i­ty’s edu­ca­tion­al envi­ron­ment.

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