Part One. Lexicon:
One. Tribalism: A sense of tribal oneness that entails entitlement and a sense of superiority for the tribe and a sense of subservience and inferiority for The Other. Trinity High consists of The Vigils and the Everyone Else, Us and Them.
Two. Scapegoating, unfairly blaming the misfit or The Other, often with tragic consequences. The Vigils scapegoat anyone who does not bow down to the Vigil's power evidenced by conformity and obedience.
Three. The Bureaucratic Chain of Death: Genocide or mass slaughter is given official sanction from the state and the responsibility is distributed through a bland, unfeeling bureaucracy so that no one feels personally responsible. The Vigils give "assignments" to students. Some of these "assignments" wreak havoc and even give one teacher a nervous breakdown but the students are simply following orders.
Four. Deference to authority: You are poised to give credibility to what the authority tells you and are not inclined to resist or question the “intelligence” of that authority. For example, Americans believed in Bush’s “intelligence” that he claimed was a compelling reason for us to invade Iraq in 2003. The consequences are still with us. The chocolate sale is the work of Brother Leon, a corrupt teacher who engages in fraud, graft, kickbacks and other forms of skullduggery but is esteemed because he is an authority figure.
Five. Response to social consensus: Behaving like the Herd, conforming to the majority opinion of your society in order to share a sense of belonging and unity. Brother Leon relies on the Herd behavior for his chocolate sale to be successful.
Six. Willingness to embrace stereotypes, which means you embrace a monolithic definition of The Other when in fact groups are diverse and defy stereotypes. The Vigils demonize anyone who does not conform to their ways.
Seven. The “average” person. By average, we mean you are willing to make moral compromises to insure your security and the security of your family and your tribe. Sadly, most people are “average.” The goal of the "average" person is to be invisible by complying to the norms of society, the collective authority, even if these norms are immoral. An example is racism. If racism is widespread, a moral individual is compelled to fight it rather than go along with the immoral majority.
Eight. “Decency,” as it is commonly defined, is insufficient to repel evil in others and ourselves because too often “decency” means law-abiding, “nice,” passive, docile, malleable, and indifferent. A coward who conforms to the group is considered “decent.” Does Jerry behave decently in the novel or does he conform to the immorality of the Vigils? You'll have to decide for yourself.
Part Two. The General Causes of Nihilism in the Novel
1. nihilism, the obliteration of right and wrong, losing any stakes in life, nothing is at stake anymore, beyond caring is the shortest definition, a sort of spiritual death where you wander the world not caring if you live or die or amount to anything. Death of a moral compass. Jerry seems to suffer from nihilism. So does Archie. They are resigned to being helpless to evil and the lust for power.
2. Anything Goes Morality or Moral relativism, make up your moral system depending on circumstances. Stealing, lying, cheating, and other immoral conduct can be rationalized under the right circumstances. Archie is the supreme master of rationalizations. He never takes responsibility for his own actions. He always has excuses.
3. Populist Fallacy: Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t I? Students see other students doing the "assignments" so they feel that it's okay to do them.
4. Slippery slope is when your rationalizations lead to nihilism. Once you rationalize a small thing, like stealing a fruit juice at work, why not take a few twenty dollar bills out of the cash register?
5. The fear of having no rules so that “all is permitted” or “anything goes.” We need boundaries. This is the theme of the beloved classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
6. Inconsolable, learned helplessness, a sense that everything is futile: In Chinese:mai ban fa: “Nothing can be done.” This is the emotional state of Jerry about his life.
7. Point of No Return; Archie's contempt for others, and himself, is so strong that one wonders if he can ever return to any kind of sympathy for the human race.
8. numbness, which leads to sadism, a perverted form of power in which one derives pleasure from inflicting cruelty upon others. Brother Leon loves to play sadistic games with the students such as Bailey when he calls this outstanding student a "cheater and a liar."
9. Nihilism happens to people who don't know it.
Part Three. What are Archie’s values and how do those values connect to nihilism?
1. See Chapter 2, page 8. In a way, Archie is the novel’s Satan. For Archie, there is no truth, only BS, and some BS is better than other BS. That is the measure of things: the quality of one’s BS. Nihilism means there is no truth and therefore no lie. All is B.S. Therefore, all is the same. People who embrace the B.S. Principle inevitably succumb to nihilism.
2. Archie prides himself as being beyond the norm, beyond the herd, beyond conventional morality. He is better than everyone and as such he is mired in intellectual pride. Archie sees himself as the supreme psychologist who can penetrate and manipulate anyone. Yet he is the butt of his own joke in that he lives in interminable isolation and anhedonia. While he is full of bluster and braggadocio, there is an underlying sadness and loneliness that afflicts Archie and in the end it suffuses him with a sense of nihilism and hopelessness.
3. Archie is a determinist. He doesn’t believe people have free will to exercise moral goodness or self-transformation. His “assignments” are designed to show how helpless people are in order to confirm Archie’s deterministic worldview. He lives to re-affirm his pessimism. His nihilistic pessimism is embodied in the statement “Life is shit.” Such a statement is evidence of nihilism.
4. Reinforcing Archie’s nihilistic pessimism, he sees all adults, including Brother Leon, as frightened children wearing an adult wax mask, which melts rather easily, upon the slightest provocation. The corrupt and cowardly Leon underscores Archie’s belief in nihilism, that the world is a hopeless and meaningless place. Brother Leon poses another nihilistic vision to Archie: Leon is both sadistic and helpless before his own sycophantic cowardice. He is also corrupt.
5. Archie’s complete absence of self-respect also contributes to his nihilism. Archie prides himself in his powerful role, yet he has no self-respect because in part he knows he is a man with no integrity. He plays the game just like everyone else. Deep down, he knows he sold his soul to the Devil. He is overcome with self-disgust, for he knows his own actions are vile.
6. Archie’s misanthropy (hating the human race) also contributes to his misanthropy. See the opening of Chapter 5. His sour attitude toward life is further reinforced by his belief that he is a genius surrounded by a “confederacy of dunces,” idiots who cannot appreciate his scintillating assignments.
7. Archie’s daily observation of human cowardice and conformity contribute to his nihilism. For example, every day he sees some scared, groveling student obeying the Vigils’ Assignments. No one stands up to the Vigils, evidencing the spineless student body whom Archie has contempt for.
8. The faculty’s unspoken tolerance of the Vigils reinforces Archie’s nihilism because he knows the faculty stands for nothing. They tolerate the Vigils because the Vigils have power and the Vigils’ control of the students is to the school’s advantage. This is analogous to prison guards and the wardens who tolerate gang leaders, shot-callers, controlling the inmates. In the end, it isn’t about values; it’s about power. And a world that worships power with no values is a nihilistic world.
Part Four. Sample of thesis statements that focus on argument
The Chocolate War is a dark novel collapsing under the author's extreme nihilistic vision, which proves unrealistic by focusing on exaggerated condition of helplessness, violence, gullibility, and the hunger for conformity.
Claims that The Chocolate War's nihilist
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