The Chocolate War

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1974

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-7

Chapters 8-12

Chapters 13-16

Chapters 17-23

Chapters 24-33

Chapters 34-39

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Literary Devices

Setting

The physical setting of the novel is given notably little description or attention, and references to places lack descriptive imagery. Students are present on the football field, in the classroom, in their apartments, and often, most vaguely, on the phone. This is because the most prominent setting of the novel is within the students’ heads. By using a third-person omniscient narrator, Cormier moves fluidly from student to student, so that readers see events from a variety of perspectives. Rather than beginning each chapter by orienting readers in a physical space, the author often begins chapters with what characters are saying, thinking, and doing. This lends a restlessness to the novel, a sense of uncertainty and volatility that helps develop The Turmoil of Adolescence.

The cultural zeitgeist of this setting, an all-boys Catholic high school in the 1970s, develops the novel’s other themes by pitting ideas about tradition and conformity against individuality and resistance. This emphasizes the strict dynamics of power and control in institutions, and their reliance on tradition as a means of maintaining them. Throughout the novel, the traditions that dictate life at Trinity do more harm than good; at best, they are a neutral and even “boring” representation of the status quo; at worst, they are physically and emotionally abusive. In such a setting, The Vigils, the longest-standing and most secret tradition in the school, are tacitly encouraged to undermine both students and teachers for the sake of maintaining “order.” In questioning the accepted norms of this setting, Jerry demonstrates feelings of turmoil that are representative of many adolescents and many other young people from his era. However, by rejecting these norms entirely, he places himself outside the bounds of Trinity society and therefore becomes fair game for every kind of cruelty the institution’s leaders can inflict.

Allusion

Allusions in the novel develop characterization and emphasize the contrast between Jerry and Archie, as well as connecting with the Catholic high school setting. The two primary sources of allusion are to Catholicism and to T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” a poem which itself contains several Biblical allusions. Though the students often proclaim that they are not Catholic or make cynical comments about religion, they still frequently think and speak in Biblical terms about themselves and others.

Allusions That Characterize Jerry

The novel’s first allusion appears when Jerry reflects that “he had been Peter a thousand times and a thousand cocks had crowed in his lifetime” (5), a Biblical reference that suggests he betrays himself by thinking one thing but saying another, denying his true beliefs. This allusion comes to have greater weight later in the novel when Jerry decides he will no longer think one thing and say another, owning who he is by stating his name and daring to stand up against Trinity’s traditions. As Jerry ponders what causes him to continue saying “no” to the chocolate sale, he thinks, “What was it the guy on the Common had said the other day, his chin resting on the Volkswagen like some grotesque John the Baptist?” (117), suggesting Jerry has been the recipient of a religious message, an awakening to a new set of beliefs. Jerry’s status as a kind of religious figure in his own right is emphasized when his fellow students ignore him when Cormier writes that his “progress through the corridor was like the parting of the Red Sea” (214). At the boxing match, the boys must not defend themselves against the punches that are thrown, a connection to the Biblical admonition to “turn the other cheek.” Thus, Jerry in his sacrifice becomes a Christ-like figure.

The most significant and overt allusion in the novel is the question, “Do I dare / Disturb the universe?” from T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (Lines 52-53). Notably, when Jerry acknowledges Eliot as the author, he cites not the poem from which the question comes, but “The Waste Land thing they were studying in English” (123), a poem about the barrenness and destruction that followed the largest war ever fought. In this way, Cormier foreshadows the destruction that comes for Jerry at the end of the “chocolate war.” While the message from “the guy on the Common” serves as a device that jolts Jerry out of his accepting conformity, it is the line from Eliot that becomes his rallying cry.

Allusions That Characterize Archie

Archie’s references to religious figures and ideas reinforce his cynicism, as he suggests Jesus was “like any other guy but caught the imagination of some PR cats” (9), likens Brother Leon’s chocolate sale to “embarking on the Crusades” (66), or aligns the pranks in Brother Eugene’s and Brother Jacques’s classrooms with “pandemonium,” a term coined in Milton’s Paradise Lost to mean “place of all demons.” These allusions convey Archie’s disdain for authority and his love of belittling the beliefs of others while creating chaos. The reference to pandemonium, the place ruled by Satan in Milton’s work, also casts Archie as the true villain of the novel, a tormenter of souls.

Metaphor and Simile

Cormier uses metaphors and similes throughout the novel to capture Jerry’s feelings, often employing vivid imagery to help readers visualize abstract ideas like physical or emotional pain. During a brutal football practice, Jerry experiences a tackle helplessly, like “a toy boat caught in a whirlpool” (4), and as he later tries to walk he is “bobbing like one of those toy novelties dangling from car windows” (5). These comparisons to toys demonstrate his inability to control his fate and make him seem small, something that someone else plays with for fun. Other metaphors and similes show how Jerry at times feels distant from his own experiences and actions; after that practice, his pain is “a radar signal of distress” (7), and when he refuses to sell the chocolates he thinks how distant and small his voice sounds, “a wrong-end-of-the-telescope kind of voice” (161). By contrast, his grief over his mother’s death is immediate and undeniable, a “fiery knot of anger” that unravels to leave “a yawning cavity like a hole in his chest” (58).

Significantly, the figurative language Cormier uses to describe Brother Leon and Archie focuses less on their inner conflict than on their outward attempts to disguise it. The author describes Leon’s smile as being “like the kind an undertaker fixes on the face of a corpse” (83) and says Archie “kept that smile on his lips like a label on a bottle” (177). In doing so, Cormier draws yet another parallel between teacher and student while emphasizing the deception they practice, and also widens the gap between these characters as the novel’s antagonists and Jerry as its protagonist.