The Absence of Moral Agency in Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War

Since the publication of The Chocolate War (1974), Robert Cormier has earned praise for breaking taboos and for introducing tragedy to young adult literature.¹ On the basis of I Am the Cheese (1977) and Fade (1988), he has also positioned himself as a postmodern novelist. Patricia Head claims that Cormier's Fade "educates his readers, not by presenting a schematic view of their world, but by revealing its constructed nature." Furthermore, "the liberating qualities of Cormier's narrative forms . . . apply in one way or another to most of Cormier's novels" (32). Frank Myszor adds that Cormier "foster[s] the autonomy of his readers. He achieves this moral goal by structuring the novel so as to require an 'interrogative' style of reading" (88). Assuredly, the postmodern elements in Fade are also present as early as The Chocolate War.² The Chocolate War is a complex novel, obviously rich for academic perusal, as testified by the numerous papers devoted to it. The depressing story and unusual narrative structure work together to create a fictional universe that is already disturbed, and disturbing.

The common reading of The Chocolate War is that because Jerry refuses to sell the chocolates, even after his Vigils assignment is over, he is a hero, a rebel against the corrupt world of Trinity—that is, Brother Leon, Archie, and Emile. This is the way that many of us would like Jerry to be, a Braveheart screaming "freedom" even as he is tortured, the individual fighting against the system. A close reading of the novel, however, shows us that there are simply not enough narrative cues to support this. In fact, I offer an opposite interpretation: Cormier presents only the illusion of moral decision making and the illusion of a rebel hero. Jerry is no moral agent and his refusal to sell chocolates is not the result of a moral dilemma.

Specifically, there are two problems with the interpretation of Jerry as rebel hero fighting against a corrupt system: (1) even if Jerry is a rebel, he is only one of many rebels at Trinity, for rebellion itself is status quo; and, besides, Jerry actually has no idea whom he is fighting or what he is fighting for; and (2) the basic "system" at Trinity is not just terrorizing to Jerry but is totally antifemale, and absolutely no one challenges it, not even Jerry. Thus, rather than giving autonomy to readers, as Myszor suggests, Cormier forces on them basically one view, one that disallows any counterview to the moral vacuousness of the characters and their misogyny.

A "moral agent" is defined by James Rachels in his The Elements of Moral Philosophy as "someone who is concerned impartially with the interests of everyone affected by what he or she does; who carefully sifts facts and examines their implications; who accepts principles of conduct only after scrutinizing them to make sure they are sound; who is willing to 'listen to reason' even when it means that his or her earlier convictions may have to be revised; and who, finally is willing to act on the results of this deliberation" (13-14). Jerry, in contrast, is clueless as to how his actions will affect others; he does not seem to deliberate on his actions; he does not listen to others' warnings; and, finally, as Perry Nodelman speculates, "Jerry's heroic action, his way of disturbing the universe, is a negative decision not to act, rather than a positive decision to do something" ("Paranoia" 30).

The strained efforts by critics to posit The Chocolate War as a ground-breaking young adult novel for not glossing over the hostile realities of life, and by teachers to cast Jerry as a rebel hero, result in a tunnel vision that refuses to see the novel's misogyny. The characters' insistence on treating females as sexual objects, and on fearing and despising women, is a correlative issue to Jerry's refusal to sell the chocolate, but it should be of primary concern to all of us. One could argue, in fact, that the misogyny is the most...