Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War conveys that change in a community demands nonconformity from individuals, for instance, common events at Trinity High would have stayed the same if Jerry hadn't shown nonconformity then no change would come to the school. Jerry, the main protagonist, is considered to be an average person, whose mother just passed away. He is trying to keep his mind off of it by keeping busy, ”Jerry’s mother has died in the spring... The routine of school for himself, and work for his father had been taken up and they both threw themselves into it.(p.60)” He does this by focusing on training to make the football team upon the death, …show more content…
“Jerry spent most of the summer in Canada, on a farm of a distant cousin… hoping to build up his body for Trinity and football in the fall.(p.60)” Even though he tries out twice.
Jerry is given the assignment by the Vigils to refuse to sell chocolates for 10 days. Until Jerry is approached by Archie, the Vigils assigner, “telling him” to refuse to sell chocolate for 10 days, even though it is inferred but not directed in the book, "Jerry gets a summons from The Vigils. Archie, sitting at a table in the gym, offers him a chocolate. Jerry refuses, and Archie asks him how many boxes of chocolates he has sold…. Archie asks why Jerry is refusing, and Jerry tells him that it is personal... Finally, Jerry says he does not want to sell the chocolates…. Archie tells Jerry that his new assignment is to say yes during tomorrow's roll call, and to accept the chocolates… We're just asking you to take the chocolates
tomorrow…(p.166-167)”, as a countermeasure to when he is approached by Brother Leon, a Trinity High teacher, to help with the chocolate sale fundraiser but everyone goes against Jerry, they outcast him more and more as he continued his defiance by not selling the chocolates for the annual fundraiser, “I need your help, Archie.” “My help?(p.26)” “You’ll help, then?” “I’ll check with them.” “The Vigils will help,” Archie said(p.29) Everyone in the world of The Chocolate War’s Trinity High school conforms to selling the chocolates for the annual fundraiser, everyone until Jerry came along that is. Jerry was put with the task of defining that. When he portrayed nonconformity, he was outcasted or shunned by everyone all because he dared to be uniquely diversified towards the rest of Trinity High by not conforming to sell chocolates.
After the death of her brother, Werner, she becomes despondent and irrational. As she numbly follows her mother to the burial
Once everybody changed from black and white to color, Pleasantville was now happy again. But this happiness was not because of a boring routine, but because of beautiful change and multicolored experiences. Times change and these rebels that see differently than everyone else influence these changes. Change is what makes the world go round.
	In The Chocolate War, the rising action was the majority of the story. At Trinity High School, the school that Jerry attends, there is a group of "elite" students called the Vigils. The Vigils give out "assignments" to random students at Trinity. Archie, the head, told the Goober that his assignment was to unscrew every screw in Room nineteen. The Goober spent several hours doing his assignment, and eventually finished with the assistance of a few Vigil members. As the story goes on, the reader learns that every year at Trinity, there is a chocolate sale run by the assistant head master, Brother Leon. The last major detail in the rising action was when Archie informed Jerry of his assignment, Jerry’s assignment was not to sell chocolates for the first ten days of the annual chocolate sale.
Then, one day, the usually-mad and explosive Jerry found a justified reason to be mad: a check got bounced from his account, literally the first time that happened in his life. What could it be? He felt it awfully suspicious so he hired an auditor to go through all of his accounts and
Throughout the book The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier there are many different themes that happen during the story to progress the plot. But there are three main themes : manipulation, power, and choices. All of which are seen by a lot of the main characters.
Why would a person decide to betray the beliefs they had fought so hard for? In Robert Cormiers novel The Chocolate War, the character of Jerry Renault changes drastically from a rebel to a follower in the end. The school gang known as the vigils and his moral beliefs motivates Jerry’s actions. He feels he must take a stand against evil. Jerry can be considered a hero because of his beliefs. In the end however he gives in to the things he fought against and becomes a follower.
People are often criticized or even attacked sometimes for disagreeing with the popular opinion. In the short ‘The shining houses’, Mary, the protagonist of the story has an opinion that vastly differs from the rest involving Mrs. Fullerton’s house. The community wants to get rid of the old lady’s house just because it does not resonate with the beauty of the rest of the “shining houses” in the community. Mary is a sign of hope for Mrs. Fullerton when two individuals Carl and Edith force her to sign the petition to eradicate the “fifty year old” house, Mary stands up for the old lady’s rights. Mary refuses to conform to what the society believes in despite the overwhelming opposition coming “invincibly from all sides”, she disagrees with the destruction of old ways of the community. Mrs. Fullerton’s house symbolizes the old way of life and tradition that people adhered by so, the destruction of that house would constitute the bullying of the older generation by the younger generation in a way. The stability of an entire community lies in the perception of the old ways as a building block for newer ideas and development. Change does not always constitute a good result in the sense that some people might be harmed by a particular change while other’s benefit, a legitimate change should have the characteristic of satisfying everybody while respecting the opinion of the
As part of an assignment from the clique of school bullies, Jerry is supposed to refuse to sell chocolates for the school for a few days. However, when those few days end, Jerry realizes he does not want to blindly do what others' tell him and continues to refuse to sell the chocolates. This causes a backlash from both the school bullies and the man in charge of the school. The bullies start to orchestrate violent attacks against Jerry to try and get him to submit to selling the chocolates. The man in charge of the school keeps blackmailing the group of school bullies into tormenting Jerry (although the bullies are not really that opposed to tormenting the poor kid who they had given this mission to in the first place). Despite these attacks and threats against him, Jerry stands his ground and does not budge in his conviction to not participate in the school chocolate sale. However, it is difficult for one student to fight off not only a group of bullies but the man in charge of the school. In The Chocolate War, Cormier demonstrates the reality that plenty of students face on a day-to-day basis. The story shows how administrators can easily let their power for to their heads and how bullies can attack and threaten their way into power. In this novel, Cormier does not give an easy out or an inspirational underdog story. The Chocolate War is far from the typical high-school-is-the-best-time-of-our-lives fluff
The story has two main threads. The first is the true story of Holocaust survivor Vladek Spiegelman's experiences as a young Jewish man during the horrors leading up to and including his confinement in Auschwitz. The second intertwining story is about Vladek as an old man, recounting his history to his son Art, the author of the book, and the complicated relationship between the two of them. It's a difficult process for both father and son, as Vladek tries to make sense of his twighlight years, indelibly marked by his experiences and a slave to the processes he had to resort to in order to make it through. On this level, it's also about Art, as he comes to terms with what his father went through, while still finding the more irritating aspects of his father's personality difficult to live with.
Archie just knew that Brother Leon has ordered twice as many chocolates than last year. He wants Archie and The Vigils to sell those chocolates for the school fundraiser. Next, The Goober is getting his assignment from the Vigils. He has to go to room nineteen and unscrew all of the screws in all the furniture so when you touch it, it all falls apart. When Jerry comes home we get a glimpse inside of his family for the first time. His dad is a really nice guy but Jerry thinks he is stuck in a very boring routine. Jerry didn’t want to turn out like his dad and wants to do other thing but he's not sure of. The next day in room nineteen, Eugene’s classroom, Archie just leans on the wall next to the classroom and just has a grin on his face which means he is very pleased with himself. Afterschool Jerry went to his locker after football practice and found a note indie. He was invited to the Vigils hideout. The next day. Today was the first day of selling chocolates. Brother Leon uses roll call to make people commit into selling chocolates. When he gets to Jerry, Jerry flat-out denies to sell chocolates. The
The world is changing at this very moment, as it has been for thousands of years. Life today is not the same as it was yesterday, nor will it be identical to tomorrow. Lives are changing, but this change does not affect merely the lives of individuals. Society as a whole is constantly undergoing modifications and other changes, both beneficially and unfavorably. People do not always readily accept this change. For ages, writers and great philosophers have been trying to discover the reasons that society makes an effort to resist this change, which comes through innovators and their new ideas. One piece of literature that attempts to solve the issue of societies resisting change is the essay “Individual Liberty and Public Control” by Bertrand Russell. He makes several points as to why societies resist change. Russell narrows the points down to three main reasons, being an “instinct of conventionality”, “feeling of insecurity”, and “vested interests” (Russell 1). These reasons can be applied to other works of literature, such as William Shakespeare’s drama The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, in which people resist changes and the opinions of various innovators. While it is true that the characters and events of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar manifest Russell’s reasons why society resists change, the underlying motive for each of these reasons in the Julius Caesar is the human nature’s selfish ambition and desire for personal gain.
The events in the novel are predicated upon the death of Joel's mother. The account of his mother's death and the upheaval it caused for him (p 10 ) is more poignant to a reader who has experienced the untimely death of a parent than to one who has not. The reader who has experienced the loss can identify with everyone “always smiling” and with the unexplainable changes in one's own behavior toward others as one adjusts to the emptiness.
Change, the essential of life, it can be tranquility or turbulence, change has no set goal, it occurs all around us without us knowing. In the novel, The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham, change is the major problem in the society even though it is hidden in different aspects of life. To the society, change is their enemy, but it is themselves who are their enemies without knowing it. A society that fails to realize the inevitability of change will indubitably agonize.
As a highschool freshman it is hard to get comfortable in a new building, especially standing up against your high school. Arguably most freshman’s or maybe even none wouldn’t. But accordingly a character from the story The Chocolate War written by Robert Cormier goes by the name Jerry Renault stands up against his high school classmates and administrators. He stands up for doing stuff they did not want to do but were forced too. For instance, in the story Trinity High a all boys Catholic School, is forced every year to sell 50 boxes of chocolates for the school. Being administered by Brother Leon a teacher who now takes responsibility for the headmaster who had got ill. Brother Leon seems to proclaim the funds for the chocolates is for a good cause but Brother Leon wants to take over the Headmaster so to impress the board he forces kids to sells boxes of chocolates. This proves that Brother Leon is confirmed as a demagogue.
The fear of change is a typical thing for people to have. However, in the short story “The Wrysons” by John Cheever, Irene and Donald’s fear of change is taken to a different new level. The Wrysons completely reject all types of modifications and all people who are different from their thought of “ordinary.” Through the use of symbolism, tone, and the Wryson’s demand to maintain their utopia, John Cheever develops a theme of disdain towards change which ultimately results in paranoia and desire for control.