Introduction
The Chocolate War is a novel about a teenage boy named Jerry that attends an all-boys school named Trinity. Every year they sell chocolates and all of the boy are meant to sell fifty boxes of chocolates. They all do except for Jerry. All because of the Vigils (a school gang). Some people may have enjoyed The Chocolate War however there is some things to avoid. The Chocolate War may end up with arguments between schools and parents because of the things that are talked about in this book. Some parents may not like there child reading this book in school. The Chocolate War should be banned from school because of its sexual content, profane language, and horrific violence.
Sexual Content
The book has a lot of sexual content throughout. Sexual content is more or less avoided in school unless it is being taught. Here, “The exhilaration of the moment vanished and he sought it in vain, like seeking ecstasy’s memory an instant after jacking off and encountering only shame and guilt.”(Page 10) is an example of this content. As a result of passages like this, parents may not want their children reading this novel. There is another quote on page 42 stating, ”Like how he sometimes felt horny when he roughhoused a kid or tackled a guy viscously in football and have him and Extra jab when he had him on the ground.” If a parent saw that line they may wonder what the teacher is reading to their child. Which may bring up arguments. Those are two
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On page 62, the coach uses profane language which is something you should not be using, he uses it like so, “We might just make a quarterback out of you yet, you skinny little son of a bitch.” Many people would think that a coach should be swearing at the team or players like that. Another example is page 154 when Jerry says to Janza, “You son of a bitch!” profane language would be a key reason for The Chocolate War to be banned from
... and how they’d wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them” (201). This kind of vulgarity infuriates Holden because it is corrupting the children and he knows that he can’t stop it no matter how he hard he tries because there will always be someone else writing it, continuously exposing more and more kids to mature themes.
For younger readers this book carries very strong language but it has a strong message. One of those is that it shows what students will do for drugs. While researching the book you discover that in South Carolina, Berkley County school district, was one of the first to pull the book from schools and libraries. This occurred after a mom protested the book when her 8th grade daughter had to read little experts from the book to her classmates. The students mother did not want her to be reading a book with so much profanity and references to sex. One of the most controversial lines that comes from the book is when Alice writes in her journal “Another day, another blow-job”. She doe...
This controversial book has been challenged in countless states for many years. In 1997 the Elgin, Illinois school district banned the book from middle school libraries. Catherine explained that the book was banned because “talk of masturbation, birth control, and disobedience to parents occurred”
Throughout the book The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier there are many different themes that happen during the story to progress the plot. But there are three main themes : manipulation, power, and choices. All of which are seen by a lot of the main characters.
This novel should be banned from the high school curriculum. This novel is too inappropriate for high school students. The novel may be too much for them to handle because of all the profanity and discrimination. This novel may be more suited for a college class were the students are much more mature and could handle all of the actions that take place in the
After hearing a brief description of the story you might think that there aren’t many good things about they story. However, this is false, there are many good things in this book that makes it a good read. First being that it is a very intriguing book. This is good for teenage readers because often times they don’t willingly want to read, and this story will force the teenage or any reader to continue the book and continue reading the series. Secondly, this is a “good” book because it has a good balance of violence. This is a good thing because it provides readers with an exciting read. We hear and even see violence in our everyday life and I believe that it is something teenagers should be exposed to. This book gives children an insig...
An example of this content is in the book “I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she got done. I enjoyed looking at her” (Fitzgerald 13-14). This is a clear example of why the novel should be banned. As Nick Carraway is meeting Tom and Daisy Buchanan, their friend Jordan Baker is at the house. Nick then goes on to talk to her and describe her in an inappropriate manner. “She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face” (Fitzgerald 1.13-14). These comments are clearly unsuitable for anyone in elementary, and could even be argued that they are inappropriate for middle/high school. These adult references can wrongly influence someone who reads the novel that based on the kind of person Nick is, that it is okay to do what he does. The comment could also not be understood by the reader, which could be in a classroom/library. One more reason the novel should be banned is because it promotes alcoholism and illegal business. "I found out what your 'drug stores' were.’ He turned to us and spoke rapidly. ‘He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol
Although this book uses offensive words, it is such an important part of this time period. Some adults may not want their kids reading these stories in school because they can repeat the words and use them offensively. People could also feel that this book isn’t appropriate because it was written so long ago and uses old-fashioned phrases that don't teach students proper English. People will always have their own opinions.
Writing is an art form, and one that should not be restricted to fit the whims of a few delusional parents and adults. Censorship of books in the United States dates back to Puritan New England in 1650, when William Pynchon’s The Meritorious Price of Redemption was banned from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The novel discussed a viewpoint that was against what Puritan ministers usually taught, which naturally made this book labeled as heretical. He then moved back to England because he thought New England had little religious freedom. Clearly, Pynchon understood that a piece of writing should not be banned for a town solely because it challenged some social norms in his highly-religious society. The Catcher in the Rye currently ranks at nineteen on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 most banned books in the United States. Although this is the case, The Catcher in the Rye should not be banned from schools. This is not just because the censorship of novels is morally wrong, but because the students reading it can relate to the main character’s, Holden’s, “inappropriate” scenes, can learn to form the relationships that Holden desperately lacks, and can learn that they are not alone in their feelings.
... anti-war tones” (notecard #3 page 1 source #3 ) this shows that parents argue and complain about the book more than what the students do as they repeat why they think the book should be banned.
As a result of Jerry not selling any chocolates, the other students’ sales began to plummet during the falling action of the story. Brother Leon began to feel nervous and had to go to Archie and the Vigils for help. Incredibly, the Vigils turned the whole school against Jerry and made selling chocolates the "cool" thing. Students began to look down upon Jerry for not conforming to the chocolate sale tradition. Someone even vandalized Jerry’s locker and cut up his gym sneakers. A group of boys, including Emile Janza, one of the biggest bullies at Trinity, jumped Jerry after football practice and abused Jerry’s body with their fists and football cleats.
These school boards and parents can claim that banning this classic will protect their children from these subjects and these thoughts, and that by doing so, they can create the world to be a perfect place with love and harmony. The religious can claim all the righteousness they want, that God made the civilized man and that without religion, we wouldn’t be where we are today. However, the true nature of these subjects isn’t in that they exist, but the fact that we simply just don’t want to think or admit that they exist within ourselves. We need to use this book as a textbook to life, or a sort of guiding hand that tells us we need to realize that without our civilizations and without our rules, the world would be a much ruthless place than it is today.
Altogether, this is a book to be read thoughtfully and more than once. It is about an unusually sensitive and intelligent boy; but, then, are not all boys unusual and worthy of understanding? If they are bewildered at the complexity of modern life, unsure of themselves, shocked by the spectacle of perversity and evil around them - are not adults equally shocked by the knowledge that even children cannot escape this contact and awareness? & nbsp;
Books like The Chocolate War, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and Of Mice and Men have been placed on the controversial bookshelf of many school libraries.
When the book was first published, readers of the time saw it as extremely scandalous. Despite the fact that the novel doesn't not demonstrate any sex or bloodshed its depiction of the passionate love story of Cathy and Heathcliff was considered highly inappropriate, and was ignored for some time.