![]() ![]() Psychological violence as well as physical violence is a way of demoralizing one’s peers in the world of Trinity, and the Vigils are masters of this kind of dehumanization. While physical violence is transpiring on the field, a different kind of violence is happening up in the stands as two members of the Vigils, Archie and Obie, plot what assignments they will give out in the coming weeks. He is so thoroughly beaten at the end that he drags himself to a bathroom stall and vomits. The first pages of the book describe the violence of Jerry Renault’s first football tryout. ![]() Throughout the novel, Cormier shows how the young male students at Trinity use violence as a means of attaining power over one another, and even over their teachers. Cormier ultimately suggests that the environment of Trinity High, in its embrace of the negative aspects of masculinity, creates a constant struggle for power and control-between both its students and its teachers-that often leads to violence. Once Jerry rattles the foundations of their school, the student body’s collective desire “for blood” comes to a head. ![]() As the boys of Trinity haltingly and shakily approach manhood, their everyday interactions with one another become tinged with violence. The insecurity, uncertainty, and volatility of late boyhood-even more concentrated within the setting of an all-boys’ high school-is fertile ground for Robert Cormier’s tale of coercion, tradition, and the dangers of individualism. ![]()
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