Related Criticism and Research

Cormier’s first three novels for adults were critically acclaimed but did not cause much of a stir until his first young adult novel The Chocolate War was published in 1974. This book full of violence, sex and coarse language with an unhappy ending brought it critical attacks. Many critics, teachers, and librarians felt uncomfortable with the content that Cormier had given. Publishers Weekly warned that this novel was “bound to cause controversy and no little resentment, especially among Catholics….Its impact is weakened by the author’s excess bitterness” (qtd. in Campbell 2: 53). Also, the English children’s book review magazine, Junior Bookshelf, delivered the most biting opinion:

This may be brilliantly written tour de force but despite the publisher’s claim it is no more a children’s book than is The Exorcist….The Chocolate War depicts a life without hope in which boys prey upon each other like prohibition gangsters, masturbate in the lavatory and drool over girlie magazines. It presents in one neat package all the most repellent aspects of the American way of life. Here in embryo are the forces of

commercialism, of corruption, of sadism and the triumph of the beast. If you are an adult and an American it may shock you out of your complacency but English children will at the best be confused and at the worst enjoy it as a sadistic spectacle…. (53)

In addition, the New Statesman gave up on a serious verdict and settled for translating the plot into current British slang: “Brother Leon, most greasy of eminences, in dead shtuck unless he off-loads his whole consignment of chockies….”

(qtd. in Campbell 2: 53).

Moreover, in her article “The Absence of Moral Agency in Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War”, Tarr argued that the protagonist in this novel, Jerry, was not a rebel hero, but “the prototype of a popular kind of protagonist in young adult literature, one who is paralyzed by postmodern society’s anxieties” (113).

However, there were different voices. For example, Peter Hunt of the Times Literary Supplement, the publication that is the pinnacle of world literary opinion, recognized this novel’s stature immediately. “A tour de force of realism….If you must judge a rather remarkable achievement…, read the whole” (qtd. in Campbell 2: 53).

Moreover, the New York Times Book Review awarded The Chocolate War a place on its annual list of Outstanding Books, and the Young Adult Services Division of the American Library Association chose it as one of their Best Books for Young Adults for 1974. In 1975 The Chocolate War was firstly published in paperback, and it went through three printings quickly. “Young people devoured it, completely untroubled by the controversy” (qtd. in Campbell 2: 54). In 2000, Breen at el. selected the twentieth century’s most significant books for children and young adults in School Library Journal, and The Chocolate War was one of those books. They remarked that “The author’s commitment to portraying his characters realistically, even if that involves

violence and despair, blazed a trail for other writers” (53).

Cormier’s second novel for young adults, I Am the Cheese, also received controversial reviews. For example, some critics appreciated the complexity of the narrative structure in the novel. Bushman and Bushman admired this book as well as other novels written by Cormier: “Most, if not all, of Robert Cormier’s novels reflect this [high] quality of writing. The Chocolate War (1974), I Am the Cheese (1977), After the First Death (1979), Fade (1988), and We All Fall Down (1991) offer complicated, sophisticated plot structure, fully developed characters, settings that complement the plot and characters, a variety of literary devices, and complex, universal themes” (230). Several journals and periodicals also put a high value on I Am the Cheese—for example, a compliment from The Horn Book Magazine: “a magnificent accomplishment”; “a masterpiece” from West Coast Review of Books; the secret, revealed at the end, explodes like an H-bomb” from Publishers Weekly, and so forth. One publisher even said that “as I was getting my books signed, I felt compelled to tell him [Cormier] about my reaction to I Am the Cheese…I felt that the top of my head was going to come off” (“A Bouquet for Bob” 393).

However, some reviewers worried about the darkness of this novel and an unhappy—even hopeless—ending. For instance, Audrey Laski argued that “[this book]

could do real harm to a disturbed adolescent, since it communicates all too effectively the paranoid fear that a psychiatric questioner may be an enemy—and then shows that it is true” (qtd. in Keeley: 33). Some parents even asked their schools to ban this novel.

After the success and the debates of Cormier’s early young adult novels, the publisher collected his very early works from 1965 to 1975 to publish a collection of short stories, “8 Plus 1” (1980). The selection contained nine short stories, and four of them were written in the point of view of a middle-aged man (usually a father too).

This book did not receive high reviews, compared to his other books. For example, the Kirkus Review said that “fans …will be disappointed with these nine tepidly sentimental stories”; New York Times criticized that this collection was “an ill-written cliché-infested book awash in self-pity” (qtd. in Campbell 2: 113). And School Library Journal noted that “none of the tales are as dramatic as Cormier’s brilliant and imaginative novels” (qtd. in Campbell 2: 114).

Nevertheless, some critics still gave this book credit. For example, in the YOVA Reader Gallo wrote that “his [Cormier’s] own short stories in Eight Plus One…provide exactly the kind of sensitive, heart-warming contrast many librarians and teachers prefer” (160).

In 1985, Cormier published Beyond the Chocolate War, which was the sequel of The Chocolate War. For eleven years, readers anticipated the sequel’s coming. But this novel did not receive as high an evaluation as The Chocolate War. Campbell summarized many critics’ reviews in her Robert Cormier: Daring to Disturb the University. Campbell mentioned that:

Roger Sutton, however, writing for School Library Journal, felt that

“individually, many scenes are vividly horrific, but as a whole this is less compelling as fiction than it is a commentary on The Chocolate War—Cormier here intensifies and explicates what was powerfully implicit in the first book.” Hazel Rochman made a similar comment in the New York Times Books Review: “With its complexity, Beyond the Chocolate War is not as starkly dramatic as its predecessor. It relies too much on Mr. Cormier’s explication, and there is less action and more emphasis on the internal lives of many characters.” (96)

With respect to Cormier’s more recent novels, We All Fall Down, different critics had different evaluations. For example, Campbell regarded this book as a middle book. She argued that We All Fall Down (and his another novel In the Middle of the Night) “have not achieved the highest places in the ranks of his work, although they are respected and admired. They are regarded rather as middle books that fill out the Cormier panoply of ideas and genres” (195). Nevertheless, critic and reviewer Michael Cart had a different opinion. He spent a lot of pages to describe and review Cormier’s We All Fall Down in his own book, From Romance To Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature, and he argued that “As [Graham]

Greene was, so is Cormier a Roman Catholic whose beliefs, guilts, and questionings enrich all his themes and all his fictions. It’s obviously manifested in We All Fall Down, where polarity after polarity visits the book’s theme: good and evil, guilt and innocence.…as for me—I think of Cormier, and I am equally grateful that he lives among us too” (186-187).

Cormier’s last two books for young adults are Frenchtown Summer and The Rag and Bone Shop, the former was published in 1999, and the latter was published in 2001 after Cormier died. Frenchtown Summer was Cormier’s semi-autobiography written in a free-verse form. Containing thirty poems, each poem had an event or an observation of the protagonist Eugene, who might be a disguise of the author Cormier.

This small book revealed Cormier’s childhood and his father’s love for him. Because this poetry was semi-autobiographical, it was not as dark as Cormier’s previous works.

After this book was published, reviewers and critics highly recommended it at once.

In addition, Frenchtown Summer won an honorable award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the Best Young Adult Fiction in 1999.

The Rag and Bone Shop was published posthumously, so some observers assumed that Cormier had not finished it before he died. Joel Shoemaker in the School

Library Journal claimed that “Cormier revisits familiar psychological and temporal territory in this memorable novella that was finished, but unpolished, at the time of his death” (qtd. in Campbell 1: 244).

Campbell argued that this book was indeed finished before Cormier’s death, but maybe he had not made it more perfect yet. Campbell also acknowledged that “He [Cormier] had an almost superstitious fear of talking away a book, so I learned never to ask about a work in progress” (“The Last Cormier” 623). However, she quoted a passage from “A Personal Remembrance” written by Cormier’s wife, Connie Cormier, to give the readers an explanation: “This is Bob’s last book. He always hated to see his books end, and he loved to tinker with them after they were finished—to ponder, to search for the perfect word, the perfect phrase. Tragically, he died…before he was able to do that with The Rag and Bone Shop….” (qtd. in Campbell 1: 245).

Critic and writer Michael Cart regarded Robert Cormier as “the single most important writer in the field that is made distinguished by his contributions to it” (qtd.

in Hyde: 29). In From Romance To Realism: 50 Years of Growth and Change in Young Adult Literature, Cart wrote that:

Cormier had the courage to write a novel of thematic weight and substance that actually suggested that there might be no happy endings in young adult lives; that conventional morality might not prevail; the evil might be real and even institutionalized; and that there are powerful, faceless forces that will destroy us if we disturb them. This may not be a revolutionary concept in the history of deterministic philosophy, but in the 1970s it was evolutionary as a view of the world upon which to construct a young novel. And it opened enormous areas of thematic possibility for writers who would come after Cormier…. (84)

Indeed, Cormier can be regarded as a ground-breaking and distinguished writer, especially in the area of young adult literature. This is understood or assumed by anyone who needs this study.

Chapter 3 Theme

What is theme? According to The Harper Handbook to Literature, theme is defined as “(1) A central idea. (2) A topic for discussion. (3) An expository essay written for class” (461). The first definition is used in this chapter. All writers have their favorite theme or themes in their writings, including Robert Cormier. Many critics and reviewers such as Campbell, Cart, Angel and Hyde have discussed that Cormier’s favorite theme is good vs. evil, which is many novelists’ preferred one. In addition, Cormier likes to write the stories about the individual against the system, particularly in his early works like The Chocolate War, I Am the Cheese, The Bumblebee Flies Anyway. The third theme that Cormier prefers to conduct is guilt vs.

forgiveness, for he is a Catholic as well as influenced by a famous novelist Graham Greene. These three themes, good vs. evil, system vs. individual, and guilt vs.

forgiveness, will be discussed in the following sections.

3.1. Good vs. Evil

Since Cormier’s first young adult fiction The Chocolate War was published in 1974, many reviewers had already noticed Cormier’s favorite theme in his novels:

good vs. evil. Cormier creates several vicious teen characters in this novel: Archie and his stooges constitute an underground society named the Vigils, which controls the school in secret. Archie is extremely clever, indifferent, and manipulative. He used to say that “life is a shit” (The Chocolate War 16). Another “bad guy” is Emile, who likes power and fighting. Different from Archie, Emile is eager to win other’s

attention, and his way is to annoy people. In the end of this novel, Emile and the

“good guy” Jerry have a fight, and he beats Jerry fiercely. But the most terrifying scene is where many students are watching and “shouting from the bleachers for more action now. The noise chilled Jerry. ‘Action, action,’ came the shouts from the audience” (252).

The description above reminds the reader of one scene in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, when the lost boys mistake a boy Simon for a beast, these boys chase him and want to kill him:

“Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!”

The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed.

The beast was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the abominable noise something about a body on the hill. The beast struggled forward, broke the ring and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws. (136)

Although the boys on The Chocolate War do not beat Jerry on their own, they are similar to the boys on The Lord of the Flies, eager to taste the blood. Archie and Emile may be evil, but the boys who watch this fight in excitement and never ever try to stop it seem evil too. Among the audience, only the Goober tries to stop it; however, he is the only one who suffers a guilty conscious because he thinks he has done nothing to protect Jerry. This part will be discussed in section three in this chapter.

Why do most of the boys seem so violent? Cart points out that the young generation

in America is the most-at-risk-ever; many young adults have been involved in suicide, drugs, sexual harassment and guns. Cart argues that “youth gangs have become almost as ubiquitous as violence it self in schools….It’s all based on anger and hatred, of self and others” (274). Cart’s book was published in 1996, and the situation is still getting worse twelve years later. In the case of the boys in The Chocolate War, it may be argued that violence is part of their life, and what Archie has done is only push the button. However, the readers never know what Archie really thinks and why he has done these things because the author Cormier does not show any reason at all.

Another critic Campbell argues that Archie is a symbol of pure evil, and this concept is deeply Catholic. Even the name of Archie has its religious root: Archie refers to “the Archangel, who fell from Heaven to be the Fallen Angel, or Lucifer himself” (Campbell 1: 58). Campbell provides an intriguing conception: the Implacable, which means cannot be appeased, in other words, relentless. Campbell points out that Cormier’s theme of good vs. evil is theological, not psychological; that is why there is no psychological explanation or motivation of Archie’s manipulative behaviors as well as no interior monologue from Archie in this novel.

In Campbell’s opinion, evil in The Chocolate War is the unholy trinity: Archie, Emile and Brother Leon. Different from Archie and Emile, Brother Leon is an adult, and ironically a religious member who owns the authority of the school. Cormier describes Brother Leon: “the mustache of moistness on Brother Leon’s upper lip, the watery eyes and the dampness on his forehead” (22). And his behavior in class: “the pointer he used either like a conductor’s baton or a musketeer’s sword. He’d use the tip to push around a book on a desk or to flick a kid’s necktie, scratching gently down some guy’s back, poking the pointer as if he were a rubbish collector picking his way through the debris of the classroom” (39). Cormier gives the readers a more specific image of Brother Leon than that of Archie. It seems that Brother Leon is less symbolic

than Archie. If Archie is a symbol of pure evil, then there must be human agents to do the will of the Evil. Brother Leon is one of them, in addition to the members of the Vigils and even the most boys at Trinity High.

Nevertheless, there is a heroic loner at the school, namely Jerry. As Jerry stands up to confront the evil, he becomes a symbol of good. Jerry dares to disturb the universe because he does not know any better. Just like a Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Jerry fights for his idealism: “this morning, he had stood his ground and fired a level and positive No at Brother Leon. For the first time, the word brought exultancy to him, a lifting of the spirit” (177). From then on, Jerry tells himself several times that his name is Jerry Renault and he’s not going to sell the chocolates. Jerry later learns the price he must pay for it: being ignored, harassed, and finally beaten fiercely.

Eventually he tells his friend the Goober not to disturb the universe.

This ending makes many critics and reviewers uncomfortable; for example, John Rowe Townsend has criticized Cormier books: “In Robert Cormier novels, violence takes complex and alarming shapes….It can be strongly argued that fiction for young people should not present an unduly rosy view of the world, but Cormier’s novels seem to me to err the other way—to suggest that decency is a loser, that evil is great and will prevail….” (qtd. in Cart: 184). However, Cormier was once interviewed and said that “we know life isn’t always fair and happy. There are enough books with happy endings. I think there is room for the realistic novel about things that really go on in the world. I try to write a warning about what’s waiting out there” (qtd. in Hunt:

51). In another interview Cormier also said that “many people think teenagers live in a kind of vacuum. They don’t. And when they read about the dark side of life in books, it gives an affirmation to what they see and hear every day…” (http://www.teensreads.

com/authors/au-cormier-robert.asp).

Indeed, life is not always sweet and smooth, and a happy ending only exists in a

romance. Cormier is a pioneer who begins to write about the real world, and the real world does not guarantee a rose garden. More importantly, Jerry’s action is not regarded as failure. Jerry is the only one who forces this rotten world, Trinity High, to emerge and be exposed in front of the readers. His behavior of confronting the evil makes the readers think about their own surroundings and situations, just like Campbell argues that “when the agents of evil are other human beings, perhaps good can win if enough people have the courage to take a stand together” (Campbell 1: 64).

Cormier uses Jerry to convey this meaning.

Cormier uses Jerry to convey this meaning.