What Is The Misuse Of Power In The Chocolate War

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Robert Cormier's novel The Chocolate War surrounds the main protagonist Jerry Renault and shares his experience in attempting to "disturb the universe" that is Trinity High School. At Trinity it is quickly noted that there isn't much difference between teachers and students. Brother Leon, a teacher at Trinity, holds power over the students but Archie Costello, a fellow student at Trinity, holds power over the students as well. These two characters, plus a not-so-secret group of students known as The Vigils make it very hard to realise who holds the power around Trinity. Brother Leon, as well as being a teacher is also the acting principal of Trinity High School. Due to this fact Leon has full control over all the students and staff of the school. Although Leon has this power over everyone he doesn't always do the right thing. An example of Leon's misuse of power is when he successfully …show more content…

Archie is known for his ways of manipulating not only his fellow peers but his teachers too. Among The Vigils, Archie is the assigner. This means that Archie and The Vigils hand pick students to give them assignments. This is a major show of Archie's power. One of Archie's first victims in the novel is Goober. Archie assigns Goober to go to Room Nineteen and disassemble it. Archie explained "Everything in Brother Eugene's room is held together by screws. The chairs, the desks, the blackboards. Now, with your little screwdriver - maybe you'd better bring along various and assorted sizes, just in case - you start to loosen." Archie is cunning and controlling and the assignments were his way to get anyone he wanted to do anything he wanted, purely for his own satisfaction. Yes, it is agreed that this is wrong and selfish, but Archie does not care. It is made quite obvious that even though Archie plays a big part in The Vigils; he is really only in business for

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