The Chocolate War

Secret societies. Manipulative sociopaths. A hero we all root for because he stands up for himself when we cannot. Chocolate. One of these things not quite sounding like the others? In Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, you get all of these, plus a left over uneasy feeling about the cruelty of high school and the unreliability of adults.

            This is in fact a children’s book, despite the obviously dark and dangerous subject matter. In fact it has ended up on the banned book list frequently for exposing the gritty underbelly of an all boys private Catholic school as a home for sexually frustrated, violent prone and psychologically manipulative teens, and a secret society that holds sway even over the faculty. I’m not going to lie; this is not a book that I would have picked up on my own. I read it for a class I’m taking on taboos in children’s literature, and it certainly fits the bill for that. And yet there is something that isn’t shocking at all about this book. Maybe it’s just the desensitization of my generation to violence and the cruelty of the young, but the fact that a secret society controls the student body and no one stands up to it doesn’t seem all that of a remarkable idea to me.

The characters of this group, called The Vigils (hello incredibly non- intimidating name!) fall easily into typical high school archetypes, remaining relatively undeveloped outside of the given parameters. There is the underdog hero Jerry, standing up to The Vigils by refusing to sell boxes of chocolate in the annual school fundraiser. He is quiet, an outsider, and takes abuse like it’s going out of style. He never fully achieves that triumphant moment over the bullying that most other novels would provide, which is perhaps why I struggle to form my opinion of the book. I’ve been trained to want that ending that puts the bad guys down and leaves Jerry riding off into the sunset. Of course, real life doesn’t work that way, and that discomfort is what redeems the novel as a work worth reading.

Archie Costello serves as Jerry’s tormentor, and is one of the most horrifyingly relatable bullies in literature. Perhaps it is a testament to his manipulative power that as a reader I found myself sympathizing with him as he felt increasing pressure as the mastermind of The Vigils, coming up with “assignments” and constantly being plagued with the possibility that the entire system will turn on him. He has the assistant head master in his pocket, and the eerie power struggle between the two of them cast the reliability and authority of adults into greater doubt.

In the end I still can’t quite decide if I enjoyed The Chocolate War or not. On the one hand it is fairly predictable in terms of characters development, but then the plot refuses to adhere to the traditional mode of an anti-bullying story. This disconnect made me uncomfortable, which then caused me to think, so the novel does facilitate that higher cognition one doesn’t always expect from young adult literature. I will recommend with trepidation, for the conclusions you come to as a reader might surprise you, but then, isn’t it always better to be surprised?