Examples Of Obedience In The Chocolate War

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Obedience and The Chocolate War The question of what causes people to obey is a complicated one. When teenagers are growing into young adults, many of them tend to disobey. In The Chocolate War, only few have the courage to disobey due to fear of punishment. “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”- Albert Einstein. In The Chocolate War, those who obey are those who don’t do anything to take a stand against evil. Brother Leon is an evil person who uses his power to manipulate students and teachers to obey him, such as students like David Caroni who allowed himself to be blackmailed. Richy is a character who obeys because of his need …show more content…

Brother Leon uses fear of punishment to get David to say what he wants by purposely giving him a bad grade. If David obeys, he may get the mark fixed and if he doesn’t, Brother Leon will give him a failing grade, and David will have “allowed Brother Leon to blackmail him (pg.109). This puts David in fear of punishment because as a scholarship student, it would be such a disappointment and shame to continue having this F, and possible other f’s in the future. When David submits to brother Leon and tells him about the assignment, it gave Brother Leon the obedience he wanted and the idea that he could blackmail students to get …show more content…

Being the child I was, I had not thought about the girl who drew it, nor the punishment I could receive from stealing the picture. All I thought about was I want the picture. So ignoring the morals I grew up with, I stole it. Three days later when I was confronted about it, I broke out crying in front of everyone.The remorse and guilt that I still feel to this day has prevented me from ever doing something that will hurt others. My actions not only hurts others, but it hurts myself. This is fear of punishment because I don’t want to ever feel that way again, or having someone call me out in public again, but is also belief in rightness of the rule because I feel guilt due to my brain knowing that I did a bad thing to hurt others, and I should not do that again. I do not obey when it is a small choice in life. For example, if my mother tells me not to eat cake after eight at night, sometimes I don’t listen because the consequence is not that bad and I am not inflicting pain on others. If there is a heavy consequence, I will usually choose to obey, but If the consequence is small and has little impact, I most likely will

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