Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory is a rather dark novel, and one that most would
consider to be a children’s book. However, I believe that this book was truly
meant for a Young Adult audience, and that better representation and study of
this book through the lens of a Young Adult novel could lead to a much more
thorough understanding of the books inner workings and deeper messages.
However, before all of that, a summary is in order.
Charlie
Bucket, an 11-year-old boy, lives in a run-down house with far too many family
members. His grandparents, Grandpa Joe, Grandma Josephine, Grandpa George, and
Grandma Georgina, and his mother Mr. and Mrs. Bucket. Charlie adores Willy
Wonka, the candy making genius who operates in the same city that he lives in,
and is ecstatic to here that Mr. Wonka is holding a contest to allow certain
people the privilege of visiting his factory. Charlie wishes that he could get
his hands on a Golden Ticket, the highly valued item that allows you passage
into the factory, but due to his families living conditions he is unable to
afford more than one chocolate bar a year, which is where the Golden Tickets
are supposedly hidden. On his birthday, his family manages to scrape together the
money to buy Charlie a Wonka Chocolate Bar, which unfortunately does not hold
the Golden Ticket. As Charlie is walking around town one day, he finds a
fifty-pence coin on the ground. He decides to use the money to buy some Wonka
Chocolate Bars, before handing the remainder of the money over to his family.
After buying the first one and devouring it, Charlie buys a second bar and is
rewarded with the fabled Golden Ticket. Charlie races home to tell his family the
good news, and the family prepare to send Charlie and his Grandpa Joe off to
enjoy the factory.
Soon,
the trip into the factory unfolds. Charlie meets his fellow Golden Ticket
winners, Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde, Veruca Salt, and Mike Teavee. They are
greeted by Willy Wonka himself, a rather strange and unsettling man, who begins
to lead them on their tour. As they go through the different areas of the tour,
each of the children meet a certain and rather unique fate. In the first room
of the factory, the Chocolate River Room, Augustus decides that he will drink
from the river of molten candy. He soon falls in, and is sucked up by a tube
that supposedly leads to the Fudge room. Next, Violet Beauregarde suffers a horrible transformation
in Wonka’s inventing room. She disregards Wonka’s instructions and begins to
chew on a new type of chewing gum that Wonka has invented but not had successful
results with. Violet eventually begins to transform into a blueberry, gaining
weight at a ferocious rate while also having her skin turn a deep shade of
purple. Following Violet is Veruca Salt, who meets her fate in the
nut room. Thousands of squirrels reside here, testing for good nuts and bad
nuts to put into Wonka’s candy. Veruca demands that Wonka sell her a squirrel,
and when he refuses, she decides to get one for herself. The squirrels attack
her, and determine that she is a bad nut, and throw her down the garbage chute.
Her father falls in after her while attempting to pull her out. Mike Teavee is
the last child to suffer an unusually cruel fate, which he meets in the
Television Room. Here Wonka is testing the ability to beam his candy into people’s
televisions, which they could then reach out and grab. Mike uses the technology
to put himself on television, shrinking himself to the height of a couple of
inches in the process.
Once all of the children have been
weeded out except for Charlie, Wonka determines that Charlie is a worthy successor
and shall inherit his entire chocolate factory. Wonka showcases the Great Glass
Elevators flight capabilities, and takes Charlie and Grandpa Joe outside to see
what happened to the other children. Augustus was drastically changed by tube,
which has caused him to become drastically less heavy, almost to an unhealthy
degree. Violet has lost all of her blueberry weight, but maintains the skin
tone of the fruit in question. Veruca and her father come out of the factory
coated in sewage and trash, with Veruca’s father seemingly planning on being
much stricter towards his daughter. Finally, Mike Teavee, with the strangest
transformation of them all. The shrunken Mike was taken to the taffy machine in
an attempt to stretch him back to his normal size, however it seems that he has
been stretched out to be almost paper thin and 10 feet tall. Wonka then pilots
the Great Glass Elevator towards the Bucket’s house, picking them up and
allowing them to live in the factory with Charlie.
I personally believe that this novel
is a gold mine when it comes to Young Adult literature. I have heard people
compare the characters to the Seven Deadly Sins, and make many dark and
disturbing revelations about Wonka and his factory. The novels themes of
temptations, and the emphasis they put on the children as being more mature
than the majority of the adults in the novel, can lead to some incredibly
interesting and entertaining thoughts and essays. This novel is much more of a
Young Adult novel than most people assume, and proving that it deserves it due
is something that I would love to explore, by giving an in-depth overview of
some of the darker and overlooked themes and inner workings of the novel. By
showcasing how truly deep this novel can be, I believe that Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory can offer as much to the Young Adult genre as any of the
novels that are considered classics can, if not more. This novel is an untapped
resource that is begging to be giving its time in the spotlight, which is
something I am happy to provide.
Hi Nicholas,
ReplyDeleteI think you are right that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory can be considered a complicated adolescent novel, and I think you'll find some scholarship already treats it as such. Obviously, your argument will have to get much more specific as reading it as a young adult novel is just far too broad. You'll want to start by reading some articles on the novel to see how it is already discussed in scholarship, and I've seen some interesting perspectives on violence and danger towards children in the novel that might align with your interests. In particular, Barbara Richter has an article titled "Roald Dahl and Danger in Children's Literature" which discusses a removed scene from the original version. Bernard Beck wrote an interesting article titled "It Takes an Exorcist: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Brat Camp and the War on Children." Another interesting angle to pursue could also be the oompa loompas vs. the children. The children are portrayed as sentient beings capable of self improvement and with future potential, but how are the oompa loompas portrayed? Are they human? What is their backstory? At the center of the novel is the uncomfortable presence of what appears to be systemic slavery or at least worker oppression in this idyllic candy factory.
Great novel, I think this is an excellent choice! I was fascinated by what you said about the characters being analogs for the Seven Deadly Sins, I'd honestly love to read that paper. You said that this novel can offer so much, as an adolescent novel, rather than a children's book and I agree. If I were to write this paper, I would focus on what specifically it is doing in a particular field. One of the obvious messages of the novel is the cautionary tale it tells about capitalism. I would be interested to explore the novel's treatment of capitalism. One of the novel's metaphors for capitalism is food/gluttony, I think that would be a great topic. I found an article that has a similar message that you mind find useful- Gingerbread Wishes and Candy(land) Dreams: The Lure of Food in Cautionary Tales of Consumption. The paper was written by Susan Honeyman and published in The John Hopkins' University Press, you can find it through google scholar.
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