The Chocolate War Lesson 3: Nihilism, Evil, and Cruelty Define Characters Archie Costello and Brother Leon

The Chocolate War Lesson 2: Nihilism, Evil, and Cruelty Define Characters Archie Costello and Brother Leon.

 

English 1C Writing Assignment for Essay #1

Choice A

Develop a thesis that addresses The Chocolate War novel’s theme of dehumanization. You might consider the novel’s conflict between free will and determinism as you observe Jerry Renault struggle for his soul in the aftermath of his mother’s death.

Choice B

Develop a thesis that addresses the similarities between Archie Costello and Brother Leon, especially as they pertain to the sin of pride, moral depravity, nihilism, and sadism (wanting to inflict cruelty upon others).

Choice C

Develop a thesis that compares the theme of evil in The Chocolate War and Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.” See this commentary.

Evil and Dehumanization Are Gradual

Dehumanization doesn’t happen overnight. It happens in increments. The novel’s two most evil characters, Archie and Brother Leon, did not wake up evil. Rather, they daily cultivate evil: corruption, nihilism, sadism to feed their enormous egos.

The evil is in a perverse way like a well-honed statue they’ve spent their whole life effort on: They’ve invested so much time in their own evil making that they must delude themselves that they have taken the best life course of all the options available to them.

Their willed delusions result in greater and greater dehumanization.

People who submit to evil don’t believe they’re doing evil. Rather, they believe they are choosing the past path for their self-interest.

Brother Leon and Archie are blind to the fact that their actions result in furthering their misery, alienation, and dehumanization, and their swollen egos prevent them from acknowledging the errors of their ways.

Moral Depravity and Loss of Critical Thinking Skills

Archie and Leon are smart in terms of mental powers, but their smarts is compromised by their egotism and moral depravity so that they lack the objective critical thinking skills to make a dispassionate analysis of what they’re doing that works in their self-destruction.

It is rare that individuals takes stock of their moral accountability and address their wrongdoings in the service of self-improvement.

It is rare that people can swallow their ego, examine unflinchingly their shortcomings, and then, resisting the temptation to self-pity and learned helplessness, take effective action to improve their behavior by embracing virtue and discovering a path toward happiness.

Two. The Coach asks Jerry Renault why a shrimp like him is trying out for football quarterback. Why is Renault doing so?

Some might argue that Jerry, who recently lost his mother to cancer, is trying to escape the grief over such a huge loss. Or that the pain from football is a welcome substitute to the pain of mourning for the loss of his mother, and he needs a distraction.

Sometimes when we are grieving, we go through so much pain that we eventually face an emptiness and numbness that can only be remedied, we believe, through self-hurt. We become desperate to feel--anything--even if the feeling is excruciating pain.

Three. Describe the complicated relationship between Obie and Archie.

Obie, referred to as an “errand boy,” hates and admires his boss, Archie, the seemingly sociopathic high official of the school underground gang or organization called The Vigils, who spends his time devising schemes and humiliating “assignments” while showing off his disbelief in religion and his general embrace of nihilism (the belief that nothing matters in this world because everything is BS).

Archie is a sort of deputy (The Assigner) to the head honcho Carter, the boss of The Vigils while Obie is a low-ranking secretary.

Archie wallows in his power and his condescension over the human race while Obie envies Archie for being so cool and apparently dispassionate about everything.

Archie is repulsed by physical violence and human sweat, but he relishes in psychological games and emotional warfare. He is a toxic soul who, unhappy, wants to make sure he makes others’ lives a living hell. If he can “murder” a human soul, he feels he has triumphed.

In Chapter 2, Archie says, “What the hell do they think I am?” suggesting he is full of self-regard and self-grandiosity. He is overcome by the sin of pride.

Obie can never trust Archie because Archie is duplicitous, a person of total affect, pretense, and facade.

In many ways, Archie is the Devil.

As the Devil, Archie needs to torment those who will put up a good fight and those who show special vulnerabilities. Archie is drawn to Jerry based on Jerry’s suffering and loss of his mother. An opportunity for cruelty and nihilism and the opportunity to see someone with a rich soul lose that soul is irresistible to Archie. Killing souls is Archie’s full-time job. Why? In part, because Archie is already dead, and he needs company.

The novel is nothing less than the fight for the human soul in the face of the tribe’s demands.

Four. What is it about Brother Leon that terrifies Archie?

That adults are not masters of their existence, that they run scared, that they have no answers, that they are morally crippled and corrupt, that at the end of the day they are scared little children wearing a facade.

Adults spend their whole lives conforming to a script to impress others, to put up a facade that will win respect, veneration, and approval. But beneath this facade is a terrified soul anxious that any misstep may result in a stumble that will result in humiliation and ridicule.

No doubt, Archie sees a reflection of himself in this portrait since he tries to portray himself as the Big Guy looking down at all the puny adolescent peons of his school.

Brother Leon, Trinity’s assistant headmaster, and Archie, Vigils’ deputy, are soulmates, two devilish souls entwined in skullduggery, including a corrupt chocolate sale, which includes a suspiciously large order of Mother’s Day chocolates with purple ribbons. Clearly, Brother Leon has committed some kind of impropriety, which we can only imagine though it’s hinted that Brother Leon purchased the chocolates at a great price as a money grab for the school. And he needs Archie’s help to expedite the situation.

Like Archie, Brother Leon is cruel and sadistic and he seeks out those with vulnerabilities and weaknesses and loves “exploiting those weaknesses” (25).

Leon won’t utter the Vigils by name, but he relies on their power to keep the school under control, the way prison guards rely on the inmate “shot callers” to manage the rest of the prison population.

In the famous Chapter 6 where Leon humiliates Bailey as a cheater, using several logical fallacies, we see that Leon is a grown-up version of Archie, a man who relishes in playing games with people’s heads, gaslighting others, and causing mayhem because his own inner torment compels him to torment others.

Five. How does Archie tempt Jerry at the end of the novel, beginning in Chapter 35?

Archie wants to see Jerry resort to violence, evidence that Jerry has no self-control, evidence that Jerry is a pawn of external circumstance just like the next guy, evidence that Jerry is just another soulless animal, evidence that Jerry has no moral core, evidence that in this world there is nothing to fight for, no soul to preserve, no moral code to uphold. Life is garbage. Life is nihilism. Archie, who is dead, must have this “truth” affirmed. It is his primary psychological motivation.

ike the short story “The Lottery,” they draw randomly to see who gets to commit violence upon whom. This stage of brutality has an audience that pays for a raffle of the 50 missing boxes of chocolates.

Archie loves the bloody spectacle and its appeal. As he gleefully says, “You see, Carter, people are two things: greedy and cruel. So kid pays a buck for a chance to win a hundred.  Plus fifty boxes of chocolates. The cruel part--watching two guys hitting each other, maybe hurting each other, while they’re safe in the bleachers. That’s why it works, Carter, because we’re all bastards” (231).

The bloody spectacle affirms Archie’s nihilistic worldview, so nihilistic to the core that even his boss Carter is disgusted by it.

Six. The Goober has been morally repulsed by Trinity High School all along. Why is it important that he show up to the bloody spectacle in Chapter Thirty-Seven?

Sadly, our hero Jerry is too absorbed by grief and anger to be a moral point of view. The novel’s moral point of view actually belongs to a secondary character, The Goober, who must bear witness to the erosion of his friend’s morality as Jerry submits to violence.

He witnesses Jerry, now a broken young man on page 248, a young man broken by the “game,” the system,” saying, don’t rock the boat, play the game, do what they tell you because if you don’t, they will crush you into powder. Jerry has submitted to Archie’s nihilism, and The Goober bears witness to it.

Nihilism Is No Longer a “Choice” for Archie and Brother Leon

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.
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.
3. Populist Fallacy: Everyone else is doing it, so why can’t I? Brother Leon presumably sees other teachers getting kickbacks, so he “joins the party.”
4. Slippery slope is when your rationalizations lead to nihilism.
5. In nihilism you reach the point where there are no rules so that “all is permitted” or “anything goes.”
6. Inconsolable, learned helplessness, a sense that everything is futile so the only thing left in life is to “get yours.” In America, we have the nihilistic saying, “I’ve got mine. Get yours.”
7. Point of No Return, like the cop who steals drugs 1,000 times.
8. “Despair is not knowing it,” Kierkegaard
9. empathy vs. self-pity, an eternal battle
10. numbness, which leads to sadism, a perverted form of power in which one derives pleasure from inflicting cruelty upon others.

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.

Archie Is a Satanic Figure

One. Like Satan, Archie is full of pride and has blind faith that his superior intellect gives him the upper hand with others.

Two. Like Satan, Archie has contempt for the human race ("We're all bastards," he says in the novel). Having contempt means you believe every person has a price and that every person enjoys watching the humiliation and failure of others. This is called schadenfreude.

Three. Like Satan, Archie lives in eternal exile, apart from the human race. Archie is insufferably lonely and disconnected from others he attempts to compensate for his misery by exercising power.

Four. Like Satan, Archie is so proudful that he'd rather rule in hell that serve in heaven. That is to say, he prefers to live in his lonely world and marinate in his self-centered existence.

Five. Like Satan, Archie is the master of rationalization and manipulation. He can pull BS out of his you know what to trick others and suck them into his schemes.

Six. Like Satan, Archie easily rejects moral absolutes and moral values because he rationalizes that he is superior to others and thus lives beyond the moral sphere. Morality doesn't apply to him. What does? Moral relativism. You make up whatever morality you want depending on the circumstances.

Part Five.  The Difference Between a General and a Specific Thesis. It's the Difference Between a Failed and Successful Essay. 

A general thesis is too broad, too blah, and has a limp lackluster quality. 

A specific thesis is razor-sharp in its focus, fiery, and sometimes argumentative.

Examples of a General Thesis

The Chocolate War is a deterministic novel.

Determinism imbues the novel's characters.

The characters cannot escape determinism and are doomed to a life without free will. 

More Specific Thesis Statements Addressing Determinism

The Chocolate War affords us a dark vision of the world, one stripped of free will and taken over by determinism. This unforgiving determinism is the result of _________, __________, ___________, and ___________. 

General Thesis Examples

A world of determinism can never rise above the despair of nihilism. 

Nihilism is the novel's major mood and produces the novel's major theme. 

The novel's characters cannot escape nihilism. 

Improved Thesis Statement Addressing Nihilism

The novel's nihilism comes from Cormier's pessimistic view of human nature, which can be characterized by __________, ____________, __________, and _______________. 

General Thesis Examples 

Archie is Satan.

Archie's supercilious air makes him a satanic figure.

Archie has a devilish way about him. 

Archie's devilish manner makes him repulsive. 

More Specific Thesis That Addresses Archie's Satanic Aspects

 

While not devil's equal, we can see that Archie's psychology has many qualities in common with that Fallen Angel Lucifer. The most striking similarities include __________, __________, ______________, and _____________. 

What is the dehumanization process that encourages those in power (teachers, the Vigils) to become more cruel and ruthless in their imposition of power against their subjects (students)?

Example: Chapter 6: Brother Leon is bored with his life and feels the need to terrify one of the "weaker" students for his own delectation and sick sadistic pleasure. 

Brother Leon uses false logic in the form of a false syllogism to accuse Bailey of cheating.

1. Bailey, why do you cheat?
2. Bailey earns straight A's.
3. A's are a sign of perfection.
4. Only God is perfect.
5. Bailey can't be God and enjoy God's perfection.
6. Therefore, Bailey is a cheater and a liar.

There is also an example of the "Brain Tie."

Sometimes it works the other way around with the students abusing the teacher.

1. The spit wad incident for the teacher with PTSD.
2. The fat teacher who got stuck in the supply closet while getting the overhead projector. 

Analyze the sadistic dynamics between “captors and captives” in Chapters 5 and 6 with the Stanford Experiment. Consider the process of dehumanization.

1. Goober is less human and more like “Vigil bait.”
2. Archie prides himself on being able to “build a house next door,” come up with a quick solution for the Vigils, but he can’t find a solution to his own misery, his own personal sense that he’s lacking in humanity. He also feels a sense of “self-disgust,” especially when he’s performing an Assignment, interrogating a student.
3. The interrogating takes place in a windowless room with guards and a bare light bulb. It’s essentially a prison cell.
4. “Tell me why you’re here.” What does this establish? Who’s in charge, who’s got the power. Obedience.
5. Archie tells Goober the Assignment isn’t personal, which shows the depersonalization or dehumanization of the subject performing the Assignment.
6. The Goober passively accepts the Assignment. It is “doom,” something inescapable, no student has been able to fight against it.
7. In Chapter 6, Brother Leon takes delight in humiliating Bailey, one of his best students, by accusing him of being a cheater. The scene underscores the powerful and the powerless.

Part Three. One Way of Approaching the Essay Assignment (If I Were Writing It)

In my first page, I would write about a time I compromised my humanity by conforming to some unwritten law, like the time I fought Ron Reynolds because he had said something in PE that had insulted me. I wasn’t really mad, but punched him to “defend my honor,” then felt guilty afterwards.

Or I'd write about the constant demonization of Tasmanian Devil. 

Nihilism in the Novel

 

To suffer from the condition of nihilism means you’ve given up on the idea of right and wrong, free will (the free will to exercise individual conscience over the demands of the tribe), and reciprocity (treating people the way you’d like to be treated) for a better society. As a result, you’ve surrendered to the paralysis of self-pity and learned helplessness and see yourself as a victim at the mercy of powers larger than you.

 

There are two types of nihilists in the world, those who know they’re nihilists and those who don’t know. Most nihilists don’t know they are.

Most people slowly surrender to nihilism and become helpless to the point that it is often too late.

 

Two examples: A doctor who obsessed over his ex-wife taking the furniture from his million-dollar home and the woman who never recovered from her fiancé cheating on her two days before her planned wedding.

 

In contrast, Archie Costello knows he’s a nihilist. He believes everyone, including himself, is bad and cowardly at their core. He sees himself as superior to others because he at least has the courage to recognize that he is a horrible person, a mere puppet in the world’s power play. He knows that no matter how many people he is manipulating, there is always someone above him who manipulates him. His worldview makes him bitter and full of contempt and self-disgust, a condition he attempts to allay by inflicting cruel games on others.

 

Part Three. The 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 is a form of self-pity and learned helplessness. 

10. Nihilism is the product of not loving something larger than yourself.

11. The long-term effect of nihilism is anhedonia, the inability to experience happiness or joy.

 

 

Part Four. 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 Five: In-Class Activity 

Write a one-paragraph profile of someone you know who surrendered to nihilism. If you like your profile, you may use it as an introduction for your essay.