The Chocolate War

Unlike many of the top ten banned or challenged books as identified by the ALA, The Chocolate War is a book I had never heard of, and incorrectly assumed based on the title and categorization as young adult fiction was in line with How to Eat Fried Worms or something similar. I was shocked at how the story progressed and pleasantly disturbed by its climax and conclusion.

Published in 1974 by Robert Cormier, it was made into a movie in 1988 and despite a slow start, is now a highly regarded work of young adult fiction. For fun, I jotted down the images or content I assumed could result in the books challenges, including but not limited to parents death, parents malaise, lying or manipulative teachers, adolescent masturbation or sexual urges - including alternatively violent sexual urges and homosexuality, hazing, and, of course, smoking and bad language. I'm sure something on this list peeved of some parent, but I think something at the core of the book is much more challenging and keeps the book in the top five of banned books, going back to 1990.

If Holden Caulfield represents the young anti-hero that I thought I identified with and secretly emulated, Jerry Renault is the anti-hero of a much more sinister and bleak world-view. Whereas Holden questions his peers, his society, and his place from perspective of privilege, examining what is ultimately a personal crisis, Jerry is forced to ask these questions when faced with aggressive and malicious external forces. As the plot progresses Jerry routinely looks to a quote by T.S. Eliot "do I dare disturb the universe?" printed on a poster in his locker. It is the fundamental question of the book - who dares to upset the norm, the status quo? Early in the plot, Jerry is challenged by hippies and admonished for being "square." Yet he is the only character who continually, through self examination and introspection, makes his own decisions. Other characters, including those inside of the secret society charged with maintaining and manipulating the status quo of the student body, often internally rail against the character of Archie and the manipulative environment he has created, but do nothing. Their half-hearted attempts are brushed aside and the characters return to the security of power and fitting in.

This pressure to avoid upsetting others or the norm, "peace at all costs," is exploited by the villains of the story. Even the sympathetic characters, the Goober and Brother Jacques, fail to enact lasting protests against the pressures of the system, instead capitulating after brief moments of sympathetic action. And this I feel is the most sinister aspect of the book. Not only do the good characters fail to be good and are cowed into submission, the protagonist Jerry is broken by the end of the book. The villain's deeds go unpunished, the plot unresolved, characters continue to enact the rigid structure of behavior, and Jerry himself no longer sees the benefit of his individuality:

"They tell you to do your thing but they don't mean it. They don't want you to do your thing, not unless it happens to be their thing, too. It's a laugh, Goober, a fake. Don't disturb the universe, Goober, no matter what the posters say."

So the book ends with the hero literally broken by a bully and mob rule, mentally no longer daring to upset the universe, while Archie and his accomplice the acting headmaster of the school Brother Leon maintain their power. A pretty harsh ending, and I wonder if adults wouldn't rather hide the fact that this group think happens everyday and the villains (often the very adults one is taught to trust) thrive, while maintaining the myth of individuality. Holden has a mental breakdown, but he's still Holden. Jerry is the tragic oppression of our secret individual selves, the death by a thousand cuts, that happens to us all everyday.

There is a Japanese proverb "the nail that sticks up will be hammered down." Terrifying, but we should all admit it is ourselves who hold the hammer. That is why this book is challenged, say what you want about adolescent sexual frustrations. It is a reality often too painful to admit.

Up Next: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou