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-Two of “The Choco­late War,” Bri­an Cochran is con­sumed with anx­i­ety over the alarm­ing drop in sales for the choco­late sale fundrais­er, with yes­ter­day mark­ing the sharpest decline yet. His dread pri­mar­i­ly revolves around Broth­er Leon, the moody and unpre­dictable teacher who serves as a con­stant source of pres­sure for Bri­an, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing Leon’s pre­vi­ous crit­i­cism of his work. The task of pre­sent­ing the sales totals looms over him like a dark cloud.

    Despite Bri­an’s attempts to remain steady, he feels a surge of tri­umph in deliv­er­ing the bad news to Leon, who has been dis­mis­sive of him in the past. Leon arrives to hear the fig­ures, his pres­ence over­whelm­ing and intim­i­dat­ing. Bri­an informs him that the sales fig­ures have fall­en below the pre­vi­ous year’s totals, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly com­pli­cates their cur­rent quo­ta.

    Leon’s sharp response—questioning Bri­an’s math­e­mat­i­cal skills—ignites Bri­an’s frus­tra­tion, but he sup­press­es any incli­na­tion to retal­i­ate. The tense atmos­phere thick­ens as Leon insists that Bri­an read off the sales fig­ures. Bri­an begins by list­ing the names of stu­dents who met or exceed­ed their quo­tas, ini­tial­ly enjoy­ing the con­trol over the pac­ing of his report. How­ev­er, as he pro­gress­es through the list, each drop in num­bers becomes increas­ing­ly uncom­fort­able, cul­mi­nat­ing in the rev­e­la­tion that one stu­dent, Renault, sold noth­ing at all.

    Leon uses this moment to make an omi­nous claim about the over­all decline in sales, attribut­ing it to what he calls a “dis­ease” of apa­thy afflict­ing the stu­dents, sug­gest­ing Renault as the “car­ri­er” of this malaise. The chap­ter cap­tures Bri­an’s inter­nal tur­moil as he real­izes Leon’s intent to scape­goat Renault for the sales decline, lead­ing to a chill­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion of pow­er dynam­ics and manip­u­la­tion with­in the school envi­ron­ment. The unset­tling atmos­phere and Leon’s fix­a­tion on Renault under­score the bur­geon­ing con­flict that has been seed­ed through­out the nar­ra­tive.

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