Chap­ter 20 of The Choco­late War vivid­ly por­trays the pow­er dynam­ics at play with­in the school, specif­i­cal­ly show­cas­ing the influ­ence of the Vig­ils, a pow­er­ful stu­dent group led by the manip­u­la­tive Archie. The chaos in Broth­er Jacques’ U.S. His­to­ry class serves as a stark demon­stra­tion of this con­trol. The chap­ter opens with a dis­rup­tive sequence that has become rou­tine for the stu­dents. When­ev­er Broth­er Jacques men­tions the word “envi­ron­ment,” the class erupts into a bizarre dis­play of ener­gy, with stu­dents jump­ing up and down in silence. This seem­ing­ly ran­dom out­burst is no acci­dent but a planned prank by Archie, a spec­ta­cle that has been unfold­ing for over a week. Broth­er Jacques, a young and rel­a­tive­ly inex­pe­ri­enced teacher, is clear­ly unset­tled by the bizarre behav­ior but choos­es not to inter­vene, per­haps think­ing it is just a tem­po­rary joke. While the teacher remains pas­sive, Obie, a mem­ber of the Vig­ils, observes the absur­di­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. He knows full well that Archie is the mas­ter­mind behind the dis­rup­tion, but the rest of the class choos­es to feign igno­rance and go along with the spec­ta­cle. Obie feels frus­trat­ed by the entire sce­nario, caught between his involve­ment in the Vig­ils and his increas­ing dis­com­fort with Archie’s manip­u­la­tion of the sit­u­a­tion.

Despite the ris­ing ten­sion, Archie push­es for­ward with his plans, turn­ing the dis­rup­tion into a larg­er cam­paign against Broth­er Jacques. The aim of this prank, as explained by Archie, is to reduce the teacher’s vocab­u­lary by mak­ing the class mock him every time he uses the word “envi­ron­ment.” Though Obie is not entire­ly on board with the idea, he is reluc­tant­ly drawn into it, know­ing that he will be tasked with ensur­ing that the word is men­tioned repeat­ed­ly by the teacher. This respon­si­bil­i­ty weighs heav­i­ly on Obie, who is exhaust­ed by the end­less manip­u­la­tion he must help car­ry out. He is increas­ing­ly dis­il­lu­sioned with Archie’s need to con­trol every aspect of the class and his peers. The stu­dents, while par­tic­i­pat­ing in the prank, are not ful­ly invest­ed in it. Most of them, like Obie, are begin­ning to rec­og­nize the futil­i­ty of their actions, yet they con­tin­ue to go along with Archie’s whims, under­stand­ing that resis­tance would only lead to fur­ther com­pli­ca­tions. The class­room becomes a stage for Archie’s dom­i­nance, and Obie finds him­self becom­ing more irri­tat­ed with every pass­ing moment, real­iz­ing that his involve­ment in these pranks is dimin­ish­ing his sense of agency.

The pow­er bal­ance shifts unex­pect­ed­ly in the lat­ter part of the chap­ter when Broth­er Jacques, who has clear­ly been informed of the sit­u­a­tion, decides to take con­trol in a sur­pris­ing way. Rather than allow­ing the stu­dents to con­tin­ue mock­ing him, he begins to play along with their antics, encour­ag­ing them to jump up when­ev­er the word “envi­ron­ment” is men­tioned. This rever­sal of roles catch­es Obie off guard and adds a lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to the dynam­ic. Instead of being the orches­tra­tor of the joke, Obie becomes a pas­sive par­tic­i­pant in it, real­iz­ing that the joke he had been so care­ful­ly main­tain­ing is no longer under his con­trol. The shift in pow­er cre­ates a deep sense of dis­com­fort for Obie, and as he watch­es the stu­dents play along, he feels a mix of anger and humil­i­a­tion. His role in the prank, which he had been per­form­ing out of oblig­a­tion to Archie, has been under­mined, and he now sees how pow­er­less he is in the face of the teacher’s unex­pect­ed response. When Obie leaves the class­room, his frus­tra­tion boils over. He vows to get revenge on Archie, who remains unfazed by the chaos he has caused, smil­ing as if noth­ing is out of the ordi­nary. This moment of rebel­lion against Archie’s con­trol rep­re­sents a small but sig­nif­i­cant shift in Obie’s mind­set. His anger is not just direct­ed at the prank but also at the manip­u­la­tion and pow­er plays that have been a con­stant part of his life with­in the Vig­ils.

This chap­ter encap­su­lates the broad­er themes of author­i­ty, con­trol, and resis­tance that define the envi­ron­ment at Trin­i­ty. The manip­u­la­tion of the stu­dents by Archie and the unex­pect­ed coun­ter­at­tack by Broth­er Jacques illus­trate the com­plex­i­ty of pow­er dynam­ics with­in the school. While the stu­dents are often por­trayed as pawns in Archie’s schemes, Broth­er Jacques’s sud­den shift in tac­tics reminds them that even the most seem­ing­ly pas­sive fig­ures have the abil­i­ty to reclaim con­trol. The absur­di­ty of the sit­u­a­tion under­scores the ten­sion between the stu­dents’ desire to break free from the author­i­ty imposed on them and the teach­ers’ abil­i­ty to respond to their antics. In the end, Chap­ter 20 serves as a turn­ing point for Obie, who begins to ques­tion his role with­in the Vig­ils and the broad­er pow­er struc­tures at play in his life. His inter­nal con­flict deep­ens as he con­fronts the con­se­quences of his par­tic­i­pa­tion in these manip­u­la­tions and real­izes that the rebel­lion against author­i­ty that he had once sup­port­ed may not always be as right­eous as it seems.