After the madness dies down, Archie and Obie sit in the bleachers. In spite of all this, Jerry still thinks it is worth it to try and “disturb the universe.” Chocolate sales begin soaring. Its primary setting is Trinity High School where a secret society called The Vigils exists. Instant downloads of all 1373 LitChart PDFs Struggling with distance learning? Obie and Carter make Archie draw from the box twice—once for Jerry and once for Janza—but Archie draws a white marble each time. Archie runs for the utility building, hoping to reset the electricity and let the match finish, but once there he encounters Brother Jacques, who has come to stop the madness. He quickly recovers, though, feeling satisfied that even if the Vigils are upset, the rest of the student body still fears him. The black box is the only thing that ever trips Archie up—and as he seemingly always beats it, only ever for a moment. The Chocolate War is set in a middle-class private high school run by Catholic brothers, in the fictional town of Monument, Massachusetts (a town much like Robert Cormier's hometown of Leominster). The black box is a mechanism meant to enforce control within the realm of potential chaos the assignments create. Obie looks up into the stands and sees Brother Leon watching the carnage unfold gleefully. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!”, “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. The Chocolate War Introduction + Context . There is a conflict between the student body and the temporary headmaster over the annual sale of chocolates for the benefit of the school. The coach wants to see how much he can handle. Jerry wants very much to make the team, perhaps partially because he has recently lost his mother to cancer. Freshman Jerry Renault subjects himself to football tryouts—though the process is violent and Jerry gets “murdered” by the other, bigger recruits, he feels a sense of pride and hope that he will make the team. Brian Cochran knows something fishy is going on, as seniors and Vigils members are bringing in large wads of cash with instructions on who to attribute the sales to, but he is enjoying his own nascent popularity for the first time ever, and does not speak up. Some of The Vigils believe they are upholding a long-held Trinity tradition, while for others the Assignments of The Vigils are a play on power and authority. Archie and Obie cook up a plot to raffle off the fifty remaining boxes to the student body—a raffle like “no other in any school’s history.”. Set at a fictional Catholic high school, the story depicts a secret student organization's manipulation of the student body, which descends into cruel and ugly mob mentalityagainst a lone, non-conforming student. Before the match begins, Obie brings out the Vigils’ mysterious black box for the whole student body to see—as the assigner, Archie must reach into the box with each assignment and pull out a marble. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!”, “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. Jerry Renault, a freshman at Trinity High School, has a confrontation with the school gang, The Vigils. LitCharts Teacher Editions. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!”, “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. Janza begins beating Jerry to a pulp as the crowd cheers him on. As Brother Jacques, frustrated, stalks away to see to Jerry, Archie basks in the knowledge that, with Brother Leon on his side, it is going to be a great year. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. The assigner of The Vigils is Archie … Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. The Chocolate War is a young adult novel by Robert Comier. Although it received mixed reviews at the time of its publication, some reviewers have argued it is one of the best young adult novels of all time. It was adapted into a film in 1988. As an ambulance arrives, Brother Jacques tries to get the story out of Archie—but Brother Leon comes to Archie’s defense. Brother Leon seeks to control the narrative around the chocolate war with a much larger audience here. (including. Having ensured that the brothers will not be present, the Vigils are free to stage a cruel and unusual event: in raffling off the fifty unsold boxes and a cash prize, the Vigils have allowed each member of the student body to submit as their “ticket” an instruction for either Jerry or Emile Janza, who will be facing off in a boxing match to settle the score between them. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. The Chocolate War is a novel by Robert Cormier that was first published in 1974. Archie’s cruel selection of Jerry for an assignment despite knowing the psychological torment Jerry has, no doubt, already been through in the wake of his mother’s death demonstrates Archie’s indiscriminately predatory ways, and his desire to create chaos under the guise of controlling others. The Chocolate War (1974), a young adult novel by renowned American author Robert Cormier, deals with the fallout from a young man’s decision to defy both the authorities and a gang of unruly pranksters at the Catholic school where he is a freshman. Its primary setting is Trinity High School where a secret society called The Vigils exists. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!”, “This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. Instant downloads of all 1372 LitChart PDFs (including The Chocolate War). By using our site, you acknowledge that you have read and understand our. Archie assigns a kid called The Goober to “Brother Eugene’s room,” and for Jerry Renault—who, Obie tells him, lost his mother to cancer last spring—Archie chooses “chocolates.”. Because Archie knows that there is always a slight chance he will have to take on his own assignments himself, Cormier implies, every task he gives out is a slightly watered-down version of what he’d really like to do. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Throughout Trinity, the students grow increasingly fed up with the chocolate sale.