2016, first published 1964
This is quite a quick and easy read
and the text is peppered with Quentin Blake’s
quirky illustrations. The story opens with the family living in utter poverty.
Charlie and his parents live with both sets of grandparents. Only Mr Bucket works
- in a factory that makes toothpaste. Food is scarce. “The only meals they
could afford were bread and margarine for breakfast, boiled potatoes and
cabbage for lunch and cabbage soup for supper”(loc75). Charlie longs for
chocolate. Charlie is poor though not necessarily unhappy. The chocolate is a dream, yes, but his life
is full of stories. After supper each night he goes into his grandparents’ room
and listens to their stories. One day Charlie gets the grandparents to tell him
about Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory and they talk it up big. This is the
stuff of dreams. Grandpa Joe confirms this: “it makes my mouth water thinking
about it” (loc150). Yet the chocolate factory is a place of mystery. Grandpa
Joe informs Charlie that no one ever goes into the factory nor does anyone ever
come out (loc76). It seems that Wonka has sacked normal workers because they
were giving away his secrets and closed the factory. Then it reopened and he
now has some sort of slave or artificial intelligence working for him (loc
199).”But most mysterious of all, Charlie, were the shadows in the window of
the factory,” (loc 220) Grandpa Joe informs Charlie.
Wonka provides five
golden tickets, wrapped up in ordinary chocolate bars and Charlie now looks for
his golden ticket (loc 254). The children who win the tickets are already
privileged and to some extent dysfunctional. Augustus Gloop is well fed and
does not suffer the hunger that is part of Charlie’s everyday life (loc 273). “Eating is his hobby” (loc 278).
Veruca Salt lives with her rich parents in a city far away (loc 295). Charlie has
his one chocolate bar a year whilst Augustus eats several a day and Veruca’s
father buys as many as he can (loc304). Violet Beauregarde is the third winner.
Her mother has attempted to bring her up as a lady but has not succeeded (loc
374). Mike Teavee is the fourth. This is a young man obsessed with television
(loc 399).
Grandpa Joe takes a
gamble. He raids his secret hoard of cash and gives Charlie money for another
chocolate bar (loc 424). But there is no golden ticket and then Charlie has to
go even hungrier because the factory where his father works closes down.
Charlie is third time lucky. He finds a fifty pence piece with which he buys chocolate
and finds the final golden ticket - but only after he has spent his change on
another bar rather than saving the money to buy food for the family. Does this
bring him the joy he expected? No at first he feels dizzy and quite ill (loc
530). Charlie has to face the responsibility of being famous. Journalists
pester the family (loc 612).
Wonka is an
eccentric, oddly dressed character:
He had a black top hat on his head.
He wore a tail coat made of
beautiful plum-coloured velvet.
His trousers were bottle green
And in one hand he carried a fine
gold-topped walking cane (loc 655).
Is the factory other
worldly? It does not seem like a factory for “Graceful
trees and bushes were growing along the riverbanks - weeping willows and alders
and tall clumps of rhododendrons with their pink and red and mauve blossoms. On
the meadows there were thousands of buttercups” (loc 731). Chocolate is mixed
by waterfall (loc 742). Then there are the Oompa-Loompas. The young people
encounter otherness, though Wonka assures them that the Oompa-Loompas are real
people (loc766). Wonka has an altruistic attitude to the Oompa-Loompas; he has
rescued them form a terrible life in Loompaland (loc 770 - 73). The
Oompa-Loompas are not slaves; they have wages, perhaps in cacao beans (loc
790).
There is a moral code
in the book. The self-centred children get their comeuppance; greedy Augustus
is carried away by the river of chocolate he tries to drink. Violet steals a
piece of the new chewing-gum, the recipe of which hasn’t quite been perfected. It turns her blue and makes her
swell up until she looks like a gigantic blueberry. Veruca wants everything she
sees and demands it of her parents. She tries to steal one of the squirrels
that is trained to remove whole walnuts form their cases and all the squirrels
pounce on her. They are testing her to see if she is a bad nut. “’My goodness,
she is a bad nut after all,’ said Mr Wonka” (loc 1301). Mike Teavee manages to get
himself miniaturised and sent by TV (Chapter 27). A suggested rescue for Wonka
seems gruesome; he can be stretched by the chewing-gum stretching machine.
Wonka objectifies the
children somewhat: “We’ll get her repaired if it’s the
last thing we do” says Wonka (loc 1126).
The Oompa-Loompas
bring us moral tales in their songs. In particular they criticise allowing children
to watch too much TV and recommend books instead (loc 1592 -1640).
There is
sophistication of language. There are some demanding puns: the cream room
contains all the normal confectionery cream and also hair cream. The bean room
has such items as cacao beans but also has human beans. Wonka’s rhyme as they row along is somewhat sinister, ending in
“And they’re certainly not showing any signs of slowing” (loc 962). Names are
interesting: Oompa-Loompa, Prodnose, Slugworth and does Fickelgruber relate to
Schickelgruber? There are intriguing concepts: hot ice creams for cold days, cows
that give chocolate milk, and fizzy lifting drinks, square sweets that look
round (loc 1202-15). The latter is another play on words. The sweets are indeed
square and look square. However, they glance around when people come in the
through door (loc 1239).
There is some
symbolism in the story even though the target reader isn’t yet ready for symbolisms. Charlie is the winner - the one
child who had not fallen by the wayside - and Wonka takes him through the glass
ceiling (loc 1682). Breaking through is worrying but the view is spectacular
once they’re out there. They watch the other children go home; they have all
changed because of their experiences at the chocolate factory (loc 1707).
Wonka sends a
powerful message “’You mustn’t despair!’ cried Wonka.
“Nothing is impossible! You watch!’” (loc 1739).
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