#the chocolate war

[davecumstaine]

"I bet you kick old ladies down the stairs and trip cripples on the street, huh?"

[swxxtgxfs]

The Chocolate War (1988)

[d4ll4s]

Hi is there anyone here who also likes the chocolate war..(book & movie ) im brain rotting so hard rn

[schlock-luster-video]

On May 10, 2019, River's Edge and The Chocolate War were screened as a double-feature on TCM Underground.

Here's some new Keanu Reeves and Ilan Mitchell Smith art!

[livvyofthelake]

idk why the hell these filmmakers decided that archie should be the most flagrantly toxic homosexual teen they could possibly have written but it’s hysterical so i’ll let them get away with it. i don’t remember what he acted like in the book btw i just assume that if he had been a little gay then i would have remembered

[komododraggggqueen]

Every book I read in 2022

[booksc8pes]

The Chocolate War

Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War is a book best suited for those with a “dark academia” aesthetic. Set in an all-boys Catholic school, the plot follows multiple characters as they either rally around or reject a chocolate sale proposed by their vice principal, Brother Leon. Its protagonist is an unlikely one: freshman Jerry Renault, a boy dealing with the recent loss of his mother and all the existential questions that come with it. He channels his feelings into football, which earns him more than a few beatings on the field. His friend Roland Goubert (unfortunately nicknamed “Goober”) is there for support, but his classmates tend to let him fade into the background. Even the Vigils, Trinity School’s own secret society of pranksters and driving force behind the student body, spares him from being involved in their infamous “assignments”. That is, until Brother Leon steps in as acting headmaster and announces the chocolate sale.

Each boy is to sell fifty boxes, and the funds will go back towards the school. He enlists the Vigils for help, and sales skyrocket. All the boys, through one way or another, are meeting their quotas- all except Jerry. Emboldened by the T.S Elliot quote “do I dare disturb the universe?” Jerry sets out to disrupt his own world through resisting the chocolate sale. The Vigils have assigned him to refuse the sale for ten days, but this quickly turns into a long-term strike. My song choices were inspired by both the time period (the 1970's) and this act of defiance- I picked tracks like Revolution by the Beatles, but also included modern songs such as The Man by The Killers. I wanted to capture the lingering effects of the 60's counterculture but also tie in the modern teen experience. Songs like Car Seat Headrest's Destroyed By Hippie Powers can speak to the feeling of teen angst and getting rid of the old self, just as Glass Animals' Space Ghost Coast To Coast talks about the feeling of being betrayed by someone you thought you could trust.

The Chocolate War is a fast-paced, impactful story about the risks and consequences about disturbing the status quo. It has the existential crisis of Holden Caulfield and the academic bent of The Secret History, with a darkly satisfying ending reminiscent of Lord of The Flies. The all-boy cast and the private school setting create a microcosm of the outside world, and Cormier can easily tackle big life issues and topics with the smaller world of a school, which makes it digestible for younger audiences without being patronizing. The story switches between character perspectives, and is unique in that chapters are not divided between characters and each perspective is randomly shuffled as the plot goes on. 

Want to see more of Trinity School? Look here, or listen to a playlist inspired by the Vigils, Jerry and his friends, and the war on chocolate.

[swantonlibraryteens]

Day 9: Books and Chocolate

No chocolate in the stacks, so have The Chocolate War (and other books)!

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

[davecumstaine]

Enjoy these gifs I made of Archie being

✨cunty✨

[teenageread]

Review: The Chocolate War

Synopsis:

Jerry Renault ponders the question on the poster in his locker: Do I dare disturb the universe?Refusing to sell chocolates in the annual Trinity school fund-raiser may not seem like a radical thing to do. But when Jerry challenges a secret school society called The Vigils, his defiant act turns into an all-out war. Now the only question is: Who will survive? First published in 1974, Robert Cormier's groundbreaking novel, an unflinching portrait of corruption and cruelty, has become a modern classic.

Plot:

Jerry Renaults is a freshman at Trinity. With the recent passing of his mother, Jerry is trying to be normal by going to school, joining the football team, and doing the task that The Vigils put him up to. The Vigils is a secret society at Trinity, where they task non-members with missions that if they fail have devastating consequences. These tasks can be anything that ring leader Archie comes up with. Not that Archie is the president, that’s Carter’s job, but Archie’s job is to come up with the assignments for the boys to do. For the Vigils, Archie is working with the hated assisted headmaster Leon, for the school’s annual chocolate sale. Each year the boys at Trinity sell 25 boxes of chocolate for a dollar each to raise money for the school. This year with the Vigils' help, each student is to sell 50 boxes, at $2 per box, with the money going towards the Vigils and Trinity. Every student, but one. Jerry’s assignment was to refuse to sell the chocolate for the first ten days, something a Trinity student has never done before. But when Jerry refused the chocolate on day 11, not only was he defying the school, but the Vigils as well. Seeing it as his mission to make Jerry pay, Archie began hatching a plot to get back at Jerry and save The Vigil's reputation.

Thoughts:

Robert Cormier writes this renowned classic about a simple school fundraiser gone wrong, with one student refusing to participate. This novel is a classic due to its several larger-than-life societal themes that Cormier talks about in such a simple story. These themes are events like corruption, cruelty, and conformity. The story is based on Trinity and the other boys simply sold the chocolate because they were told to, not for any higher morals. So when Jerry refused, something they all had the option of doing, it really made him stand out and challenge the norm at Trinity. Not that this fundraiser was for good, as the reason why it was double the price and double the boxes was a greedy corrupted version of the original sale. With Jerry refusing to sell, Archie and The Vigils went to cruelty in a way to force Jerry to sell. Cormier wrote this story from a third-person perspective following different characters as they interact with each other, moving between the main characters of Archie and Jerry, to side characters like Obie and Goober. This made the story move at a fast pace as we got to see all sides of the action, but also never got to an intimate setting with these characters, and figure out what was going on in their head. With concise writing, Cormier fits such large themes and plot points in this short-ish story, making every page count for the plot, and really ramping up the action for the climax of the story. With overlords, teachers, fighting over petty comments, and the constant fear of violence, Corimer really captures what it was like to attend an all-boys high school and makes you worry for characters like Jerry and Goober while fearing others like Archie and JAza. Really wish Cormier had more Jaza in the story, as that character was unpredictable, and hard to pin down his personality besides acting like an animal. Honestly can see why this novel is a classic, and definitely a recommended read for those wanting to see what the inner workings of high school can look like that turns a simple chocolate sale into a sadist fight to the death.

Read more reviews: Goodreads

Buy the book: Amazon

[swxxtgxfs]

The Chocolate War (1988)

[thesilencedscribes]

The Chocolate War

Robert Cormier published his 1974 novel, The Chocolate War in an already very revolutionary time for adventurous writers. This proved to be ground-breaking and The Chocolate War amassed an unprecedented appreciation from readers who were fond of the previously unconventional manner in which Cormier wrote the interactions and difficulties of his characters.

Controversy surrounding The Chocolate War seems to come from the unconventionality that Cormier brought to the table. Keeping in mind the era that The Chocolate War came out, insubordination of any kind would be daunting for older figures in would-be YA readers lives and so I can agree with YA expert, Michael Cart’s stance that the book was challenged by “adults who continued to protect their tender sensibilities[,]”. Cart seems to take a stand against the banning of the book because of The Chocolate War’s daring to “disturb the comfortable universe of both adolescents”, and the aforementioned adults, while he also admires The Chocolate War’s holding of “unprecedented thematic weight and substance for young adults.”

Within the confines of Trinity High School, readers bear witness to corruption on the part of the schools Assistant Headmaster, Brother Leon, who’s decision to misappropriate funds into the school's annual chocolate sale fundraiser propels much of the injustice seen in the plot. As main character Jerry Renault refuses to sell the chocolates, he consequently throws off the authoritarian ways present at Trinity, inciting the “Chocolate War.” And so, the school’s careful ecosystem of subordination crumbles as other students also make the decision to not sell their chocolates.

Because Jerry is punished for his refusal to cooperate with the rules imposed on him and the story’s antagonists don’t receive any karmic retribution for their misdeeds, Cormier unabashedly presents the reality that not all is just in the universe. The Chocolate War’s status as a YA novel means susceptibility to censorship due to reasons American Library Association cites as, “sexual content, offensive language, religious viewpoint, being unsuited to age group and violence”. These aspects of the novel would be compelling to their intended audience who were getting an almost-first-hand experience into the real world from the standpoint of an adult who did not underestimate the importance of the YA audience, and instead directly echoed the sentiments of his favorite author, Grahame Greene, who had said, “The creative writer perceives his world once and for all time in childhood and adolescence and his whole career is an effort to illustrate his private world in terms of the public world we all share”. Cart shares this to drive home the purpose of Cormier’s writing, which is to share an experienced perspective on the real-world issues that underrepresented YA readers will encounter and may not have the wisdom to understand the normalcy and validity of their newfound challenges. I think it’s a shame because the controversial aspects of The Chocolate War are things that are supposed to be learnt around this time of an adolescents life and in book format, The Chocolate War succeeds in communicating this to its readers. I think one of the largest takeaways in the conversation around The Chocolate War’s consistent appearance on ‘banned books lists’ is the seeming paradox between the “unsuited to age group” and the positive reception by YA readers who were/are at a valuable age to broaden their perspective into how the real world operates. The Chocolate War as not just a novel, but a banned book, is a graspable piece of content that YA readers and banned book enthusiasts alike can understand as a book with historical significance for its content inspiring so much controversy.

[schlock-luster-video]

Happy birthday, Ilan Mitchell Smith! Here's some art inspired by The Chocolate War!

[livvyofthelake]

man just got homophobically bullied by some j0e ke*ry looking motherfucker because he won’t sell chocolates. damn bro it’s rough for you out there huh?

[twindrillscomputer]

mcdonalds: cheap, easy, and what everyone else eats