The Chocolate War Historical Context

The Chocolate War Historical Context

The 1960s/1970s Counterculture

The Chocolate War was written in the early seventies and published in 1974. Its story is told almost without reference to the world at large. Chapter 3 is therefore highly significant. In this chapter Jerry, after taking a copy of Playboy down from the top shelf of a magazine rack and surreptitiously browsing, has an exchange at a bus-stop with a confrontational drop-out. Cormier's description of the group from which the confrontational young man emerges is both specific and various. "They were now part of the scenery like the Civil War Cannon and the World War Monuments, the flagpole. Hippies. Flower Children. Street People. Drifters. Drop-Outs. Everybody had a different name for them." In other words, they are exemplars of the counterculture that thrived in America in the late 1960s and was still a strong cultural and Social presence in 1974. Jerry is mocked by their spokesman as a "square,"...
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