The Chocolate War

Like The Dynamics of Power and Control, the Consequences of Challenging Institutional Authority is a theme developed by the strict hierarchies and traditions of the novel’s setting in an all-boys Catholic high school, which combines the powers of both religious and educational authority. Within this dual institution, Trinity and Brother Leon are at the top of the hierarchy, followed by The Vigils and Archie. While Archie must acknowledge Leon’s authority, he thinks there is “nothing more beautiful in the world than the sight of a teacher getting upset” (65) because he knows the other teachers are no threat to his authority and he will suffer no consequences. Because The Vigils suffer no repercussions for the destruction of Room Nineteen or causing a ruckus every time Brother Jacques says “environment,” it is significant that they must throw their full weight behind the chocolate sale to avoid the consequences of initially defying Brother Leon’s authority with Jerry’s assignment. Thus, the social order is maintained through the interaction of these two thematic ideas: the Dynamics of Power and Control create and rely upon the Consequences of Challenging Institutional Authority. Those who would challenge authority must have the power to offset or avoid the penalties.

This theme is also connected to the novel’s setting within the social upheavals of the 1970s when institutions saw increasing challenges to their authority. Even though the consequences for challenging either Trinity or The Vigils early in the novel are vague and unspoken, the institutional control of both are such strong deterrents that students rarely question them, and are wary of those who do: “Brian shook his head—who’d want to buck the system? Hell, who’d want to buck Brother Leon? The kid must be some kind of madman” (95-96). The representation of anyone who might challenge authority as a “madman,” “outsider,” or “malcontent” was a common strategy in the 1970s. It provided a way to discredit those who viewed institutional authority as corrupt rather than noble and who pointed out the violent form of masculinity that underpinned many such institutions. A school whose leaders maintained the social order by shaming students and tacitly allowing organized harassment and hazing reflected governments that clung to outdated imperialism in foreign policy as well as employers and higher education that discriminated against women and minority populations without censure.

For Jerry, the intensification of this harassment from psychological bullying to physical beating demonstrates the existential threat inherent for those who would ask: “Do I dare disturb the universe?” the question from his locker poster which contains the quote from T. S. Eliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (117). Jerry’s character is similar to Prufrock: Both are isolated and depressed, and rely on their inner worlds. The word “dare” in that quotation carries in itself the connotation of risk, of the acknowledgment of unforeseen consequences. While challenging the universe of institutional authority gained traction during the decade of the novel’s publication and has since become a trope of the young adult genre, The Chocolate War’s conclusion suggests that the consequences of such daring are often social or physical annihilation—in effect, martyrdom, as the pointed allusion to John the Baptist suggests. This aligns more closely with the tenets of classical tragedies: If Jerry’s universe is Trinity, Cormier suggests that disturbing the social order in which he must exist makes him a tragic hero, resulting in the lesson that “They tell you to do your thing but they don’t mean it. They don’t want you to do your thing, not unless it happens to be their thing, too” (248). In doing so, Cormier subverts the conventions of the genre and makes The Consequences of Challenging Institutional Authority by far the novel’s most pessimistic theme.

The novel’s setting emphasizes the value of conformity to a larger group in several ways but also highlights the power of negative team thinking or mob mentality. The football team, The Vigils, and even the fraternal representation of the teachers as “Brothers” suggests that only by conforming to the group does one fit in. Thus, in the world of Trinity, conformity is a moral choice, while resistance is an immoral one. Jerry’s realization that life is more complex than that is spurred by a series of questions. First, he encounters the questions “Why?” versus “Why not?” graffitied on the street, and then begins to think more deeply about the poster in his locker, which alludes to “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a poem that itself poses big questions about the nature of conformity and mortality.

The theme is further developed throughout the novel by the kinds of questions the students of Trinity begin to ask themselves about these topics. Many of the students want to resist Brother Leon yet conform because of his “little cruelties.” When Leon extorts David Caroni, he wonders, “If teachers did this kind of thing, what kind of world could it be?” (109). And when Brother Leon exults in the success of the chocolate sale, of the power of the group to overcome the influence of one “bad apple,” Brian Cochran wonders, “Was Leon right, after all? That the school was more important than any one kid? But weren’t individuals important, too?” (218). These questions, unanswered, contribute to the moral ambiguity of the novel as a whole and encourage readers to question themselves as well as the characters.

Jerry tries to reason out his continued resistance to the chocolate sale. He wonders at his motivation: “Was it because of what Brother Leon does to people, like Bailey, the way he tortures them, tries to make fools of them in front of everybody?” (115). He knows it is more than that, that in some way it is an effort to shout out his name, literally and metaphorically, to make himself heard. Only through his resistance can he in some way face—or deny—his mortality, like the isolated man on his poster, like the character of Prufrock in the poem. By contrast, though the other students know Leon’s tactics are evil and they balk at supporting him, most conclude that personal survival through conformity must be their guiding principle. Even Obie and Carter follow this principle, only resisting Archie’s authority in small ways. They hate themselves for conforming, for performing on cue in response to his questions during meetings; this bit of self-loathing, the novel suggests, is the price of survival. Jerry may be willing to face his mortality, but they are not.

While Jerry represents resistance and the rest of the student body represents conformity, the one character who faces the most moral uncertainty over his actions is The Goober. He at first conforms to expectations by completing his assignment for The Vigils, but the emotional toll of the fear he felt that night and the consequences of the destruction of Room Nineteen cause him to take a moral stand against Trinity—in a small way, conformity has led him to resistance. Yet even as he swears he will not give another piece of himself to the school by playing football or any other sports, he cannot bring himself to resist authority as openly as Jerry does. And though he evades the severity of the consequences Jerry faces for his moral stand against the traditions and authorities of Trinity, he too suffers physically as a result of his internal conflicts, falling ill, unsure “whether he’d really been sick or whether his conscience had revolted, infecting his body, leaving him weak and nauseous” (236). Through Jerry and The Goober, the novel conveys that morality does not always follow either resistance or conformity toward a happy ending and that actions undertaken with a moral purpose may meet with immoral consequences. As the characters discover, there are no clear answers to their questions.