Essay/Term paper: Chocolate war

Essay, term paper, research paper:  English Composition

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier was a book that we read in class, it was about good and evil. It is about how the to forces battle for superiority over one another. The book tells how one of the sides over powers the other to claim its spot on top. The people are like pawns to two of the characters, Archie and Brother Leon because they use the people to get what they want from them, and will stop at nothing to get it. Both of characters will stop at nothing to have what they want, which is to have the power over the school.

The good characters even though few in number are willing to go the distance (especially for Jerry). Jerry is the main character of the story. He has a struggle with in himself to do the right thing. He mess with the wrong people in the school and they make him pay for it, because no one can mess with the Vigils and get away with it. He was to refuse to take chocolates for ten days. However he still refuses to take the chocolates after the ten days. Brother Jacques is another one of the good guys because he sees that Brother Leon is truely an evil man and abuses his power the power that he has over the kids. He saves Jerry at the of the story from the boxing match. Goober is a good person with a big heart, but is not to smart to get out when in to deep helping Jerry to get out. All that he wanted to do was to play football and to run.

There is more of a power struggle among the evil side for them to want to work together. Archie is the Vigils" Assigner giver. Archie has a struggle with Brother Leon and Carter. First a struggle with Leon because both are trying to carrie the power of the school. Second with Carter both trying to control the Vigils. Carter the president of the Vigils puts Archie on probation tries to stab him in the back at the boxing match using the black box. He smashes Jerry in practice every day just because he can do the. Brother Leon is a sadistic teacher because of the things that he does to the kid in his class, like when he put Bailey in front of the class and smacked him on the cheek with a pointer. And says that he cheated on some work, so he puts him in the front of the class and starts to ask him all of these questions, why he did it. Then tells him only a genius can get all A"s on everything he turns in. All Brother Leon wanted to do was make a point but the way he does do things is sadistic. Emile Janza is a very sick character in this story, he call Jerry at all hours of the night and calls him a fairy so that he would throw a punch at him so he could beat him up.

Good does not win the battle of the two forces. Good is more like a road bump to the evil side. Even when evil is at evil"s own throat they beat good. Why, you say because there are twice the people on the evil side as there was on the good side and the fact that evil didn"t care how it hurt as long as it got what it wanted. The example that evil won the battle is the boxing match at the end of the story, were Jerry and Janza get it on. Brother Leon watches the whole thing from the near by hill and does nothing to stop the fight when Jerry is getting hurt. Brother Jacpues stops the fight but does it a little late, after Jerry is beaten up really bad, so bad that he has to go to the Hospital. And for Archie nothing happens to him at all.

The book Chocolate War is not only a book about good and evil but it deals alot with power struggle among the groups. Good struggles to ward evil powers away from them and from giving in to the temtations of evil. Evil struggles to sufice power of good and struggles to gain power among themselves. Between the power struggle in evil good seized the moment of oppritunity to conquor over evil, thus defeting evil once again.