The Chocolate War Characters

The chocolate addict, Archie Costello, might strike some readers as too villainous to be a believable character. He completely focused on committing evil deeds. If he had a moustache, we bet he'd b...

Brother Leon is the Assistant Headmaster at Trinity, and Jerry's homeroom teacher. Like Archie, he seems almost too villainous to be believed. Since we never get inside his head, and don't get info...

Villain time again. Emile is the most physically violent character we see. He enjoys beating people up. Through his character, Cormier asks us to think about physical violence and to compare it to...

The Goober is Jerry's only friend. He's an ace runner. In fact, running even makes him smarter. We're told, "Even his thoughts became sharper, and things were simple and uncomplicated – he could...

Howie appears in Chapter 21. He gets excellent grades, is president of the junior class, and excels at football and boxing. So, when he tells his friend Richy Rondell that he admires Jerry's refusa...

Brother Andrew is OK, he just doesn't know when he's being played. He's the subject of a Vigil's assignment, one which Obie particularly dislikes. Whenever Andrew says the word "environment" in cla...

Danny is Kevin Chartier's friend. He isn't a candidate for The Vigils. Like Kevin, he hates selling chocolates, and fantasizes about following Jerry's lead.

Gregory Bailey is really smart; he gets all A's from what we can gather. Of course, grades aren't always a measure of intelligence, but you have to be bright to get grades like these. Or, you have...

The love interest! OK, well, don't get your hopes up. This would-be romance fizzles out in the time it takes Ellen Barrett to playfully call Jerry a "pervert" and say the word "crap." Instead of ta...

David Caroni is another decent kid who Brother Leon manipulates. Leon gives him an F (something Caroni has never even seen before on one of his papers) in order to blackmail him into confessing tha...

Carter is a big, strong football player and a boxer. He's also the president of The Vigils. Unlike Archie, he doesn't mind using sheer physical force to command respect, as we see in the Frankie Ro...

Tubs appears in Chapter 14. He doesn't like selling chocolates, but needs to sell them so he can use the money to buy his girlfriend a bracelet.

Kevin is featured only in Chapter 21. He's a candidate for The Vigils, but hates selling chocolates, and admires Jerry for saying "No."

The coach is very focused on football and on making football as violent as possible for the players. We could argue that he's villainous, because he lets other players attack Jerry on the field in...

Brian Cochran is a senior at Trinity. He's very good at math. This talent causes him some trouble when Brother Leon recruits him to do the accounting for the chocolate sale. At first he'd rather d...

Paul shows up in Chapter 14. He doesn't like selling chocolates, but he'd rather do it than be at home, where life is so "boring" it's "deadly" (14.37).

Harold Darcy makes a single appearance in the novel, in Chapter 30. He's a student in Jerry's homeroom (with Brother Leon), and he's upset that Jerry isn't selling chocolates. This is after Archie...

Brother Eugene is a young, inexperienced teacher. Unluckily, his classroom, Room Nineteen, is the target of The Goober's assignment. Although all we hear are rumors, we're pretty sure that watching...

Mrs. Hunter keeps house and makes casseroles for Jerry and his Dad. She doesn't actually appear in the novel.

Brother Jacques seems to have some authority over Leon at first. He almost seems like a good guy. After all, he turns off the lights on the athletic field at the end of the novel, breaking up the r...

Obie is secretary of The Vigils. His main duty is to do whatever Archie wants him to, which includes keeping Archie stocked with Hershey's chocolate. He practically worships Archie, and admires Arc...

James is Jerry's dad. He works as a pharmacist and seems to be walking around in a fog of grief. Since he lost his wife only a few months ago, we'd say this is normal. From what we gather, his wife...

Frankie Rollo only appears in Chapter 27. He's summoned before The Vigils and shows them openly that he doesn't respect or fear them:"I'm not a scared kid who pees his pants because the big bad Vig...

Richy Rondell is Howie Anderson's friend. When Richy says he admires Jerry's act, Howie is ready to call a class meeting and organize a just-say-no-to-selling-chocolates rally. The fact that he's e...

John Sulkey appears only briefly in Chapter 14, but we can see he's really into selling chocolate, or anything else. He's probably one of the guys on the sales team Archie and The Vigils put togeth...

The Vigils kept things under control. Without The Vigils, Trinity might have been torn apart like other schools had been, by demonstrations, protests, all that crap. (4.23)The Vigils is the secret...