The Chocolate War Study Guide
Essay Topic 1: The Gospel According to Archie Costello
Defend, refute, or complicate the assertion that Archie Costello’s nihilistic worldview is vindicated by the novel’s events.
Consider the loss and devastation in the novel:
Jerry’s loss of his mother
Jerry’s loss of respect for his father who cocoons himself into a shell of apathy, numbness, and mediocrity so that he doesn’t have to feel the grief of losing his wife to cancer.
Jerry’s loss of himself to peer pressure
Jerry’s loss from betraying the values of his mother
Jerry’s compromised self resulting from his pride in his mini-rebellion or put it this way: Jerry takes pride in disturbing the universe, as we read in this strange essay online. Here is an excellent film review that explains the ending difference.
Jerry’s loss of faith in the adult world, which is seen as duplicitous and corrupt
Jerry sees primitive behavior that obliterates all social norms, leads to violence, and destroys any kind of moral code.
Archie’s loss of self-mastery and self-control that he once prided himself in after he realized he “punked himself with his own BS”
Essay Topic 2: Psychological Determinism
Defend, refute, or complicate the assertion that the novel is a refutation of the notion of free will in favor of psychological determinism.
Essay Topic 3: Stanford Prison Experiment
Develop a thesis that compares the theme of dehumanization in the novel and the Stanford Prison Experiment, relying on YouTube videos for the latter.
Essay Topic 4: The Sins of Pride and Despair
Develop a thesis that addresses the notion that The Chocolate War is a sermon raging against the dangers that result from the sins of pride and despair and that both sins are inextricably linked to one another. You could develop this topic with a character study of Archie Costello or a comparison between Archie and Brother Leon.
Study Questions
One. Discuss the themes of violence, brutality, dehumanization, and determinism in the first chapter.
We see Jerry Renault getting slammed on the football field, described as “a toy boat, caught in a whirlpool.”
He has no self-agency; rather, he is a piece in a larger machine in which there are no social norms.
The first adult we see, the football coach, is described as looking like “an old gangster.”
There is no moral code in this novel, only the code of power.
We see that Jerry is living without his mother who has died from cancer, and he has nowhere to turn for comfort or emotional support. He carries his grief in a world that worships power and violence.
Two. How is Archie introduced as a sort of Devil in Chapter 2?
Archie, a high-ranking member of the Vigils who dishes out “assignments,” believes in nothing of goodness or substance. There is only image, public relations, slick marketing campaigns, manipulation of others. The purpose of life is to gain power by manipulation of others through BS. Why? Because there is no such thing as truth. Corruption rules the day, so be the most corrupt of all.
Archie assumes the worst in people. Because he is miserable, he assumes, through projection, that everyone is as miserable as he is, and if they are not, he wants them to join him because misery wants company.
Archie suffers from the sin of pride, the belief that “he knows it all,” has everything figured out, and that his actions reflect his super knowledge of the world. In truth, he is a slave to the despair of nihilism, is desperately lonely, and lives in a personal hell disconnected from others, the universe, the world, and from any kind of higher purpose or meaning. He is a member of the walking dead.
Archie’s utter loneliness and disconnection make him feel in the depths of his heart the misery of despair, yet he conceals this recalcitrant despair from himself by fabricating an image of the superior know-it-all who is proud of who he is. His pride and despair feed each other.
Three.
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