The Chocolate War

“Why? someone had scrawled in a blank space no advertiser had rented.

Why not? someone else had slashed in answer.”

Jerry encounters these two graffitied questions after his confrontation with a “hippie guy” on the Common. The questions themselves are confrontational and set up the many contradictions and oppositional forces at work throughout the novel. It is telling that they disturb Jerry and make him feel exhausted, as they connect with The Turmoil of Adolescence and the many other questions the characters are forced to ask themselves.

“Archie became absolutely still, afraid that the rapid beating of his heart might betray his sudden knowledge, the proof of what he’d always suspected, not only of Brother Leon but most grownups, most adults: they were vulnerable, running scared, open to invasion.”

The quotation characterizes Archie as an astute observer of human nature and as a manipulator who uses every opportunity to identify weaknesses in others that he can then use to plot his invasions. It also stands in contrast to the thoughts and feelings of many other Trinity students in the novel, who view adults as somehow different from them and immune to or unaware of the strong emotions of life.

“They say the hydrogen bomb makes no noise: there’s only a blinding white flash that strikes cities dead. The noise comes after a flash, after the silence. That’s the kind of silence that blazed in the classroom now.”

The allusion to the hydrogen bomb, or “The Bomb” as it appears at other moments of chaos in the novel, suggests absolute destruction or terror. Its hyperbolic use to describe the impact of Brother Leon’s interrogation of Gregory Bailey emphasizes the ease with which the teacher inflicts terror on his students. It connects strongly with the novel’s