The Chocolate War (p.102-156)

Summary

Archie. The kid you don't want to mess with, but he was also best known for pulling of the best pranks and assignments. As Emile approached him about "the picture", Archie put on a smile knowing what Emile wanted. See, Archie had walked in on Emile doing his business and pretended to have taken a picture of it. Archie knows that he's lying but Emile doesn't and he wants to keep it that way. Now Caroni, member of the Vigils, was in Brother Leon's room talking about the F he received on his paper. Brother Leon at first tried to act worried and telling Caroni how teachers make mistake's on grading papers and so on. To Caroni everything sounded normal until Brother Leon mentioned Jerry's name. As soon as he did Caroni knew what Brother Leon. Brother Leon wanted Caroni to make Jerry start selling chocolates again and so Caroni told him that the Vigils had given him an assignment saying that he can't sell chocolates for ten days but he should be starting soon. Caroni became filled with disgust knowing the Brother Leon was blackmailing him and if he wanted that F to change he better do as he said. Brother Leon's face quickly filled with joy amused with his game. When the ten days were finally over Jerry surprised everyone by saying that he wasn't going to sell any chocolates. Brother Leon quickly became upset and looked down. Finally Jerry starts to question why he said "No" even though the assignment was over. Now the other kids had began to question why THEY was selling chocolates, they started wondering why THEY couldn't say "No" to Brother Leon. So Obie decides to tell Archie that this whole thing still has Vigils written all over it and if he doesn't make Jerry start selling again everything will go down hill. Brother Leon finally came to a conclusion that the school was being infected by Jerry's disease and the only way to cure it was to get to the center of the problem, which in this case was Jerry.

Quote

"And now along comes a freshman. A child. He says no. He says 'I'm not going to sell the chocolates.' Simple. Beautiful. Something I never thought of before-just stop selling them" (Cormier 142).

Reaction

The quote shows how Jerry is beginning to influence the boys at Trinity one by one. Everyone going crazy trying to sell their chocolates but unable to find any buyers. The boys start talking and start realizing that if Jerry could face Brother Leon and say no, they can to. I think this shows how people could influence others. If someone does something than it's only fare that the other person can to. It's really common in high school, almost like a"disease", as Brother Leon put it. If something gets started sooner or later it's going to spread around and everyone will get influenced by it.