Chap­ter 37 of The Choco­late War takes a tense and unset­tling turn as Goober arrives at the school sta­di­um, where he finds the atmos­phere thick with chaos and ten­sion. He had spent days in bed, torn between the guilt he felt and his hes­i­tan­cy to wit­ness Jer­ry’s immi­nent humil­i­a­tion in a fight against Jan­za. Despite his inter­nal strug­gles and the dis­ap­proval from his par­ents, Goober reluc­tant­ly heads to the sta­di­um, unsure of what to expect. As he enters, the scene before him feels for­eign and over­whelm­ing, with famil­iar faces now seem­ing dis­tant and hos­tile. This sense of alien­ation deep­ens Goober’s emo­tion­al tur­moil, as he must con­front the harsh real­i­ty of what is hap­pen­ing at his school.

As the fight begins, the atmos­phere becomes charged with ener­gy, the crowd eager­ly await­ing the clash between Jer­ry and Jan­za. Carter, the one orches­trat­ing the spec­ta­cle, explains the unset­tling and unfair rules, height­en­ing the sense of dread and antic­i­pa­tion in the air. The audience’s excite­ment grows, push­ing the fight­ers to act under intense pres­sure. Jer­ry, caught between his desire to avoid vio­lence and the over­whelm­ing expec­ta­tions of his peers, hes­i­tates in his actions. When he final­ly throws a punch, it is weak and bare­ly grazes Jan­za, lead­ing to a cho­rus of boos from the crowd. This moment of fail­ure deep­ens Jerry’s sense of iso­la­tion and con­flict, as he faces the con­se­quences of his reluc­tance and the harsh judg­ment from his peers.

The vio­lence esca­lates as Jan­za retal­i­ates with a bru­tal punch, knock­ing Jer­ry back­ward and forc­ing him to reassess his posi­tion. Despite the pain, Jer­ry gath­ers him­self, wait­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to strike back. When the moment arrives, he lands a sol­id hit on Jan­za, briefly sur­pris­ing him­self with the strength and adren­a­line that surge through him. This moment of empow­er­ment, how­ev­er fleet­ing, allows Jer­ry to feel a tem­po­rary sense of con­trol over the sit­u­a­tion. It rep­re­sents a shift in his mind­set, show­ing that, despite his hes­i­tance, Jer­ry is still capa­ble of stand­ing up for him­self when pro­voked. But as the fight con­tin­ues, the sense of con­trol quick­ly fades, replaced by the grow­ing vio­lence around him.

Carter esca­lates the sit­u­a­tion fur­ther by instruct­ing Jan­za to deliv­er an ille­gal blow—a punch intend­ed to inca­pac­i­tate Jer­ry. The crowd, unaware of the vio­la­tion, con­tin­ues to cheer as Jan­za deliv­ers bru­tal blows, each one land­ing with increas­ing force. Goober, hor­ri­fied by the unfold­ing vio­lence, begins to real­ize the crowd’s true inten­tions: they are not here to watch a fight, but to see blood­shed. The audience’s excite­ment and blood­lust feed into the chaos, turn­ing the event into a spec­ta­cle of vio­lence. Goober’s grow­ing sense of dis­gust and his recog­ni­tion of the crowd’s dark desires add anoth­er lay­er of moral com­plex­i­ty to the sit­u­a­tion. He under­stands that the fight, manip­u­lat­ed by those in con­trol, is less about jus­tice and more about sat­is­fy­ing the crowd’s thirst for vio­lence.

The cli­max of the fight arrives as Jer­ry, now severe­ly injured, col­laps­es under the bar­rage of punch­es. In a sur­re­al turn of events, the lights sud­den­ly go out just as Jer­ry falls, plung­ing the sta­di­um into com­plete dark­ness. This moment of dark­ness sym­bol­izes the emo­tion­al and moral blind­ness that has over­tak­en the crowd and the sit­u­a­tion as a whole. The sud­den black­out adds to the over­whelm­ing sense of dread, high­light­ing the deep­er moral decay at play. As Obie watch­es the vio­lence unfold, he is filled with a sense of dis­gust, real­iz­ing the full extent of what is hap­pen­ing. He looks up and notices Broth­er Leon over­see­ing the sit­u­a­tion, sug­gest­ing that the vio­lence may have been orches­trat­ed or encour­aged by those in pow­er. Mean­while, Archie moves through the chaos, deal­ing with the after­math of the pow­er fail­ure and the ensu­ing pan­ic. The final moments of the chap­ter leave read­ers with a deep sense of fore­bod­ing, show­ing how the manip­u­la­tive forces at play have led to an irre­versible and trag­ic out­come.