Evil

The Importance of Parenting According to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Joan ChoiComparative Literature 198

R. Shideler14 June 2014

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Introduction to Dahl and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Roald Dahl was born in 1916 and in Cardiff, Wales to Norwegian parents. Though he

passed away in 1990 to this date he is one of the most famous children’s author in the history of

children’s literature. His trademark dark humor, unsentimental retribution stories, and morally

dubious heroes have won no small amount of affection from young readers around the world. His

stories enjoy a variety of characters and ridiculously improbable situations including though not

limited to young psychic geniuses, talking insects, and man-eating giants. His children

protagonists have a tendency to subvert the evil totalitarian dictators in their lives and have just

the perfect amount of eccentricity to be called interesting characters. Published in 1964, Charlie

and the Chocolate Factory is one of Dahl’s most famous and earliest children’s novel to be

published. The author himself is said to have been inspired by the Cadbury factory in London

that occupied much of his own candy fueled fantasies as a child. His fanciful rendition of the

chocolate factory has inspired two film adaptations and a play; the magical world found in

Wonka’s chocolate factory is one that appeals not only to the audience’s gluttony, but to their

aesthetic desire for the fantastic as well.

This paper deals with three versions of the story: the novel by Dahl, the musical film

renamed Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory directed by Mel Stuart in 1971, and the movie,

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, directed by Tim Burton in 2005. While both film adaptations

drew from the same plot, both films differed largely from the novel and from each other. Dahl,

who was to write the 1971’s film script missed too many deadlines to do so. The subsequent

deviations from the original angered the author so much that he forbade any film producer from

touching its sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. The 2005 film by Burton was a

collaborative effort with Lucy Dahl to prevent the same mutations that had angered Dahl in

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1971.1 Though in many ways it was more faithful to the book than Stuart’s version, it also

differed greatly in which underlying lessons of the original it emphasized and the relationship

dynamics between characters. Much of the significance in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, be

it the novel or its film adaptations, lies Charlie’s unrelenting devotion to his parents and

grandparents and how proper parenting improves the development of a child. It would not be an

exaggeration to say that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is primarily a family story before it

is a story on heroism or character development. However, the films took noticeable efforts to

ensure Charlie had room and reason to grow into his character, and eventually into his role as the

proper heir to the factory. It is Charlie’s ideal familial relationships and the actions motivated by

his love for his family that set him apart from the other children. In Burton’s adaptation, the

family became the central point of conflict for Wonka and Charlie. It is then the education and

values Charlie has learned from his family that set him apart as the protagonist, and provides the

basis for the moral compass the story operates on.

Family and Parenting

Unlike many of Dahl’s other children protagonists, Charlie lives with his family in

harmony and love. Charlie’s grandparents clearly lavish him with all their attention, perhaps to

make up for the noticeably insignificant Mr. and Mrs. Bucket, but more likely to explain

Grandpa Joe’s close relationship with his grandson. The loving relationships that the Bucket

family have with each other, and more specifically, the obvious love and respect Charlie has for

his family set him apart from the other children who treated their parents dreadfully. In Tim

Burton’s film the familial love allowed him to become Wonka’s own mentor on the subject. (The

particular relationship between Wonka and his own family in the 2005 film will be discussed

more thoroughly later when discussing Charlie’s uniqueness and heroic attributes.) In fact, much

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of Charlie’s character is dependent on how he interacts with his family and suffers in silence and

without complaint for the sake of his family.

In the novel, Charlie’s exceptional character is mostly defined not by heroic action or

good deeds, but rather by a steadfast and consistent love for his family. In order to understand

the gravity of his actions, it must be understood that Charlie deeply suffered from the Bucket’s

poverty, yet his good-will and loving nature were highlighted and reinforced by the

consequential suffering, not diminished by it. The story takes great pains to emphasize how

Charlie suffered in silence as to not become a burden to his family and how resolute he was in

refusing anything more than what was deemed as “his fair share” for dinner.2 As the Bucket

family descends further into poverty, the novel takes repeatedly states how Charlie bore his

burdens without adding to his family’s expenses. Various examples of Charlie’s efforts to

minimize both his suffering, as well as his family’s suffering, are juxtaposed with snapshots of

the severity of their destitution. Charlie’s ability to persevere and maintain his selfless attitude in

the time of obvious hunger elevates him from a simply affectionate child to a child who

understands love and sacrifice for his family.

The 1971 film directed by Mel Stuart elaborates this portrayal further by introducing

Charlie as a paperboy, who obviously wants to eat the candy the other children indulge in, yet

uses all of his money for his family. His first interaction with his family displays an exceeding

amount of maturity for a child of his age as he took a disapproving look at Grandpa Joe’s

cabbage water soup and flourished a loaf a bread for his family’s consumption. The film does not

pass without having Charlie express his discontent with the circumstances, but the provisions he

brought to his family with food and his willingness to give up his earnings for them eclipse these

occasional bouts of childishness. That he provided financial support foreshadowed his eventual

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role as the primary breadwinner and provider of the family.3 The Charlie of the Burton film also

demonstrated a similar attitude, though Charlie’s individual suffering is not made as obvious and

is expressed more often in his facial expressions than in actions and words. After presenting the

golden ticket to his family, Charlie’s intention to sell the ticket to fund his family’s practical

expenses comes unwarranted by his elders. Evident in Charlie’s family is the trend of mutual

giving and taking, which is seen as particularly exemplary on Charlie’s part as both the Dahl and

Stuart delineate specific examples to show the amount of sacrifices Charlie made in order to

minimize the sacrifices his family must make to provide for him. Burton expresses this part of

Charlie by having him chose his family over chocolate every time. Charlie, no matter which

medium, used his family situation to determine what actions he took and how he operated.

Then Charlie’s loving and selfless behavior is starkly contrasted with the other children

with the golden tickets, who are all obviously over-indulged by the parents. The spoiled children

act as a foil against Charlie’s own kind-hearted selflessness. While Veruca Salt might have been

the most obvious contrast to Charlie with her many and insistent demands, none of the children

displayed even a fraction of Charlie’s respect and regard, and their rambunctious behavior was

only encouraged by the praises and concessions given to them by the adults in their lives. Mr.

Salt’s narrative, when presenting Veruca as a ticket winner, featured his daughter in all her

tantrum-inspired anger and ferociousness, and in the same spirit of parental disrespect, Violet

Beauregarde openly chastised her mother on national television. That none of the children

showed any amount of respect for the authoritative figures in their lives, and nearly all

interactions with their elders are consisted of demands and rebellion should those demands not

be met acts as one of the primary distinctions between Charlie and them. While the first third of

the book is comprised largely of displays of Charlie’s selfless love for his family, much of the

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second part of the novel is comprised of examples of the other children’s naughtiness and

endless wants. Each time one of them got into trouble, the child was chastised and scolded by the

parent; but each time the child completely disregarded all words from the paternal unit that ran

contrary to their greedy hearts’ desires. The sense of self-entitlement the children suffer from

was made apparent in their attitudes and words. Phrases such as, “just so long as it’s a piece of

gum and I can chew, then that’s for me! ...hand over this magic gum of yours”, said by Violet

right before she chewed the blueberry pie gum, or “I want a chocolate river and I want…I

want…” said by Veruca Salt at many points in the novel, were used by the other children

liberally and without restraint.4 When contrasted with Charlie’s refusal to take unnecessarily

from his own parents and the lack of material wealth he suffers from, their complaints degenerate

from annoying childishness to unworldly avarice. Though there is indication that the children

were intrinsically greedy and avaricious, there is a heavy implication that the children’s

dreadfulness was more of a consequence of poor parenting on their parents’ part then the

children being singularly evil.

Much how the children’s affections for their parents are minimal, their parents do not

demonstrate a particularly strong love or affection for their children, and often they are

remarkably flippant about the life-altering punishments their children experience in the factory.

Specific examples of such indifference begins early on in the tour, when Mrs. Gloop pleads to

her husband to save their son only for Mr. Gloop to reply “Good heavens, woman…I’m not

diving in there! I’ve got my best suit on!”5 The other parents are similarly reserved in their

responses for their respective child’s life altering punishment: Mrs. Beauregarde replies to

Violet’s metamorphosis by saying, “I don’t want a blueberry for a daughter!”6, later Mr. Salt

expresses that he is “extremely cross about this” and that burning his daughter is uncalled for,

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but otherwise shows little sign of distress.7 Mr. Teavee also seems unfazed by the possibility of

Mike coming back in two pieces, and casually offers his opinion for which half he hopes to come

back in the morbid case that his son will not come back completely.8 The relative disinterest the

parents have in their roles as providers for their children make them an apt foil for the Bucket

family’s own exemplary parenting philosophies. In fact, while the book specifically states each

parent came to the factory with their child save for Charlie, the parents’ part in changing their

child’s fate is so minimal that both Stuart and Burton elected to only have one parent per child in

their films. While it is made clear that none of these children lack for anything materially, the

emotional ties between parent and child are lacking. Dahl used these parents to show that tending

to a child’s physical need is insufficient, perhaps in a show of contempt for the corporate and

materialistic society, but likely more to emphasize the negative consequences from emotional

disconnection with their children.

The 2005 film maintains the emotional distance seen in the novel, sometimes letting

Wonka or the other parents say less sympathetic remarks and other times having the parent

themselves maintain their emotional ambivalence. None of the parents thought to, in any version

of the story, directly intervene and instead implored Wonka or “someone” to save their child for

them. The Burton film makes a point of showing the parents’ exasperation towards their children

in the last scene of the film and disgruntlement with the humiliation their child had brought upon

them. The parents did provide for their children in excess, but the lack of affection for their child

they have implies they were more motivated by convenience than love. This very sentiment was

directly addressed in the Oompa-Loompa’s song dedicated to Mike Teavee, addressing the

excessive amounts of television children indulge in:

Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,

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They don’t climb out the window sill…

They leave you free to cook the lunch

And wash the dishes in the sink...

‘But if we take the set away,

What shall we do to entertain

Our darling children? Please explain!’9

The beginning of the novel is wrought with examples of Charlie’s family trying to feed him at

the cost of their own meals. The older family members refused to Charlie’s offering of birthday

chocolate, though he insists. Grandpa Joe sacrificed his secret stash of coins for Charlie to have a

chance at winning a ticket. The other parents, by contrast, only gave to their child if it did not

cost them anything they considered personally valuable. The apathy of the other adults in the

story demonizes them for their lack of emotional investment in their children and makes them

into the foils of the Bucket family.

Stuart’s film may be an exception to this analysis, as he has each parent show

obvious and genuine distress over each child’s fate. The other tour members represented the less

sympathetic parents’ reactions, lending the parents a more sympathetic and emotionally invested

image. Unlike in the original novel, Mr. Beauregarde never says the line “I don’t want a

blueberry for a daughter!” and Mr. Salt actively follows Veruca down the trash chute to save his

daughter. While the importance of proper parenting and the consequences of improper parenting

is a significant theme in the novel, the 1971 film does not apply the same emphasis on the

consequences of bad parenting that Dahl did.

It seems then, that Dahl uses Charlie and his family to advocate the emotional and

educational nourishment of children. Grandpa Joe, who basically usurped Mr. and Mrs. Bucket

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as Charlie’s primary parental figure, educated Charlie by telling him fantastic stories about

Wonka and his chocolate factory. The first three chapters succeeding the introduction is

dedicated to Grandpa Joe’s stories about the chocolate factory, implying that literature is an

important part of a child’s education. In the 1971 film, he fed Charlie’s unrealistic expectations

of winning a ticket and he encourages Charlie’s bouts of mischievous activities.10 In the 2005

film, Mr. Bucket pocketed deformed toothpaste caps to support the construction of his son’s mini

factory. This trend is familiar within Dahl’s works, and often the relationship between the mentor

and the mentee will be based on stories the mentor will share.11 Dahl’s idea of an ideal parent-

child relationship was likely influenced by his own school days. While he was discontent with

most of the authoritative figures at his own school, he admired Mrs. O’Connor, a literature

teacher who shared stories with the boys every Saturday, and she is said to have been an

influential figure in Dahl’s life and likely instrumental in his career as a writer.12 As it has been

established that the Buckets’ deep familial love flourished even under extreme conditions, the

other families’ relationships and affections were shallow and weak by comparison. Much of

Charlie’s goodness is attributed to his love for his family, which was returned to him tenfold by

the older members. The other children, despite having all they wanted from the parents, did not

benefit as characters from their parents’ “affections”. Regardless of the artist rendering the story,

Charlie’s family and the love they shared is an integral part of defining Charlie as a character.

The importance of parenting and the consequences of poor parenting, then, is the most

emphasized message intended for the audience.

Agency, Heroism, Morals

While the importance of family stayed consistent throughout all three mediums, each

version justified its morals and reasoning for casting Charlie as the hero differently. The Charlie

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of the novel is incredibly passive outside of his interactions with his family, and at no point does

he commit an active deed to prove himself worthy of his inheritance. The 1971 Charlie is

characterized more by industriousness and perseverance despite the bitter truth that he simply

cannot indulge in the luxuries his classmates enjoy abundantly. He is validated by his honesty

and hard work rather than his passive obedience. While the 2005 Charlie is not nearly as active

as the 1971 Charlie in aiding his family financially, the inclusion of Wonka’s estrangement with

his father forces him to make a choice, which we are to understand is a difficult choice, and

solidify his priorities.

Dahl’s Charlie is never rewarded for a specific action, rather, he is rewarded for what he

does not do. Dahl’s other children heroes, like Matilda and George, took control of their

unfortunate circumstances and actively endeavored to improve them by wreaking havoc on those

who wronged them.13 Sophie in The BFG and the unnamed boy in The Witches collaborated with

their mentor figures to fight against the oppressive forces that threaten to kill them. Yet Charlie

did not engage in any such actions. This can explained by the lack of a human foe in Charlie’s

life; his enemy is poverty. While it could be argued that he defeated poverty by becoming

Wonka’s heir, at there is no specific action of Charlie’s or conviction he held that his victory

over the others could be attributed to. As a hero, he is incredibly passive throughout the novel,

and the only exceptional traits he had was a kind and loving heart. Wonka said his ideal heir to

be a “good sensible loving child” and that he disapproved of taking an adult successor because

an adult “won’t listen to me; he won’t learn. He will try to do things his own way and not

mine.”14 Certainly there is ample evidence that Charlie fulfilled the requirements of the

prescribed heir; his lovingness was shown in abundance towards his family; even when

encountering the lucky dollar on the road, his first thought was to ensure it was not freshly

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dropped. Though he did little to alleviate his family’s poverty, he took careful actions to

minimize his suffering from it. Yet the conditions for the ideal heir seem strange for someone as

innovative and creative as Wonka, because the requirements are incredibly generic and do not

require the child to be unique in any sense. Likewise, there is no indication that Charlie is

exceptionally smart, loyal, or creative – only that he is incredibly kind hearted and that he is

extremely loving.

Wonka’s reasons for not wanting an adult heir, however, are much more telling about the

degree of control that Wonka desired over his heir. The primary issue with adults was that they

would do what they wanted – in other words, they had personal motivations and desires that

Wonka feared would not align with his own. Not only was there a possibility that the adult’s

projections for the factory would not agree with Wonka’s, he feared they would refuse to learn

from him. The fact that he feared an adult would not learn, yet made no indication he would be

willing to learn from another adult implies that Wonka was an absolute authority in the factory.

If Wonka is an absolute, according to the compass that the book directs itself on, then Wonka is

not unlike God. Charlie’s lack of agency and personal desires were to his credit then because

Charlie would be disinclined to disobey Wonka, unlike his stubborn fellow tour members or

adults who have grown comfortable in their personal perspectives. So then the ideal heir is not

one who is active, but one who is malleable. Given his discomfort for having another adult

authority in factory, it is strange then, that Wonka invited Charlie’s family to live and help

Charlie run the factory until he was old enough to run it himself. While it is understood that

Wonka would be there to oversee the choices Mr. and Mrs. Bucket would make in their son’s

stead, it does undermine the idea that Willy Wonka fancied himself as an absolute God within

the factory. So it is not necessarily Charlie’s singular obedience and loyalty to him that Wonka

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needed, but the confidence that Charlie would defer and respect authority until he was old

enough to run the factory by himself. With an ideal personality for a student and his enchantment

with Wonka makes it easy to anticipate that Charlie would not protest to Wonka’s directive and

blossom into an ideal heir, but it says very little about what makes a good boy an exceptional boy

worthy of being called a hero. Simply put, Charlie did very little of consequence throughout the

book despite being its hero of the story other than be obedient and kind. If the reader is to

emulate Charlie, than Dahl is saying the ideal child is obedient, kind, and non-disruptive.

The movies change this considerably by giving Charlie a certain decision that he must

take to prove himself worthy, not just as a “good” child, but as Wonka’s heir. Mel Stuart had

Charlie break one of the conditions of the lengthy contract with the Fizzy Lifting Drink scene to

lower him on the disobedient ground as the other children. While Charlie’s redeeming feature in

the novel was that he was infallibly obedient, in the film it only took a quick suggestion from

Grandpa Joe for him eagerly try the soda. In that one scene, he descended from the moral high

ground that Dahl put him on and was made comparable to the other disobedient children, and his

passive obedience was no longer a legitimate ground to base his morality and uniqueness on. In

order to validate Charlie as a proper hero then, Stuart added in Slugworth and the Everlasting

Gobstopper plot to allow Charlie more agency than the novel’s Charlie was able to exhibit.

Particularly in the 1971 film, Grandpa Joe instigated and encouraged Charlie’s more

mischievous endeavors, but was not casted evil or poorly for it.15 Grandpa Joe’s advocacy of

Charlie’s more playful acts are read as him being a doting adult who ensured Charlie could

maintain his youthful innocence longer. Perhaps it is less through Charlie and more through

Grandpa Joe that Stuart emphasizes the philosophy that a good heart and good intentions do not

necessarily translate to perfect behavior at all times.

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However, Charlie is still the hero, and it is only fitting that he got his dramatic heroic

deed: the return of the Everlasting Gobstopper. The closing dialogue also reflects the different

morals Stuart wanted to emphasize rather than Charlie’s general goodness as a child. Wonka

whispered, “So shines a good deed, in a weary world” after Charlie returned the Gobstopper. It is

clear then, that the movie pushes honesty and earnestness over the silent obedience the Charlie in

the novel was characterized by. Even Wonka’s ending dialogue was modified to emphasize

Charlie’s honesty over his obedience. While the novel originally described the ideal heir as

“good sensible loving”, Gene Wilder was made to say “honest sensible loving.”16 Without the

last dialogue from Wonka, there are two possible readings for why Charlie returned the

Gobstopper and why it validated him. To understand the gravity of Charlie’s actions it must be

known that the movie operates on the assumption that taking the Gobstopper out of the factory

was synonymous with taking the candy to Slugworth and discounts the possibility that any of the

children would keep it for themselves.17 Under that assumption, Charlie’s redeeming act could be

read as him proving his trustworthiness and loyalty. This reading is especially appealing since

the act immediately followed Grandpa Joe’s loud complaints and promises to sell the candy to

Slugworth. Because the intention to sell the candy has been made known to Wonka, Charlie had

no choice but to give back the Gobstopper if he wanted to prove without doubt that he would not

go back on the promise he made inside the factory. The second reading would interpret the return

of the Gobstopper as an admission of guilt and as an act of repentance. Since the act of drinking

the soda had invalidated Charlie’s claim to the lifetime supply of chocolate, he assumed that his

disobedience also invalidated his claim to the Gobstopper. These readings are not mutually

exclusive, but the first reading does fit the ongoing theme of good intentions are more important

than constant obedience more consistently. So then heroism, as directed by Mel Stuart, does not

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come from a perfect character who makes no mistakes, but rather an honest character with good

intentions.

The 2005 film goes back to the importance of family and family relationships to motivate

Charlie’s actions and make him exceptional and active in his role as the protagonist. During the

tour and before receiving Wonka’s offer, he had little chance to prove himself as an exceptional

child and a worthy hero, so his distinctiveness had to be expressed in his daily interactions to

appeal to the audience as their hero. Notably, he asked all the right questions to trigger Wonka’s

flashbacks, but his real defining trait came from his unwavering loyalty and love for his family

as it did in the novel. He did not help his family financially the way his 1971 counterpart had, but

the minute he saw an opportunity to capitalize on the golden ticket, he made his intention to do

so clear and thus showed more initiative than his novel counterpart.18 From early on in the film, it

is clear that his priority was his family and their well-being and that he was willing to give up

whatever material fortune he possessed for their betterment. When his loyalties were put to their

final test, the choice between Wonka’s chocolate factory and living with his family in poverty,

there was no hesitation in refusing Wonka and making his distaste for the entire situation clear.

What made 2005 Charlie heroic was his mature prioritization of family over material wealth as

well as his natural loving self.

The Burton film is a family-centric film, not simply in terms of the intended audience,

but also in terms of the central theme. Wonka’s constant flashbacks throughout the tour

foreshadow the eventual conflict between Wonka and Charlie over the issue of family and

though their philosophies on the importance of family are opposites. However, Wonka’s

philosophy was not presented as an opposing force Charlie must defeat, but a lack of

understanding that Charlie is called upon to gently correct. Charlie was not shown to suffer from

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his choice, but it threw Wonka into extreme distress. Charlie was then called upon to help

resolve Wonka’s issues, allowing him to prove himself as the “good sensible loving” hero that

Dahl imagined Charlie to be. Unlike their earlier counterparts, there was a deliberate

juxtaposition of Charlie and the young Willy Wonka which made Wonka’s character into a more

complex issue and paved the way for their mutual mentor-mentee relationship. Much like Charlie

Bucket, the young Willy Wonka had an obsession with chocolate that he was unable to indulge

in, and they share the same coloring. While the similarities end there, it was Charlie’s questions

about his childhood and youth that triggered Wonka’s flashbacks and the parallel is unavoidable

once it becomes known that Wonka has every intention to turn Charlie into his mentee and

separate him, from his parents. Seeing Charlie’s loving and understanding family contrasted

against Wonka’s own strained relationship with his father allowed Wonka to become Charlie’s

foil, or maybe more accurately, Charlie’s student. While Charlie blossomed under the attentions

of Grandpa Joe and his parents, Wonka obviously suffered from the thought of family

throughout the film. The word “parent” made him want to vomit. The words “son” and

“daughter” was changed to “your little boy” and “your little girl” respectively, indicating he has

issues with family and all concepts surrounding it. While in the original novel, “loving” was one

of the requirements for his heir, Wonka specifies his heir as “the least rotten”, indicating a

distaste not just for families but also children. His lack of communication and mutual

understanding with his father, as well as his own stubbornness were the main issues to be

resolved in the 2005 film. As the poor boy who knew the importance of a loving family over

material wealth, Charlie was the ideal hero to teach Wonka the error of his ways and to lead him

in resolving his parental alienation. While both the novel and the 1971 film adaptation relied on

Wonka to resolve everything for Charlie and give the boy his happy ending, the 2005 film

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changed that by putting Charlie in a position where he could educate Wonka. The mentor-mentee

relationship is one of a mutual exchange, rather than Wonka being the absolute that Charlie

should follow. The last scene nicely summarized this dynamic and Wonka’s new deference to

authoritative figures when he did not rebel against Mrs. Bucket’s gentle chastisement and

engaged Charlie in conversation as equal business partners. Heroism for Burton’s Charlie is not

about particular acts of honesty or general goodness, but about putting love and respect before

wealth.

Absolute Authority, Justice, and Retribution

Dahl was no stranger to retribution and revenge narratives, and many of his works

featured the protagonist exacting revenge on his or her enemies. However, Charlie had no

specific enemy to defeat in any version of the story – the closest character to being an antagonist

was in fact Mr. Wonka himself for both the films. The mantle of dealing out justice, then, was

not for young Charlie to take. Rather it was Wonka, who is the closest to being the absolute in

the story, who determined the fates of the naughty children. Even then Wonka himself did not

actively deal punishment for the children, but allowed their avarice to ruin them. However, the

neutrality and validity of Wonka’s brand of justice is questionable at best. The story operates on

the premise that the children were simply too awful to be redeemed and that their life-altering

misfortunes were overdue lessons, but even with this reasoning Wonka was too apathetic

towards the children to be considered an undoubtedly fair judge. It can be concluded that the

Oompa-Loompa’s songs and the factory’s punishment fell in line with Wonka’s own ideas of

fair, but how active Wonka is in perpetrating these punishments is left ambiguous and each

medium represent his role in the punishment of the children differently.

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Charlie and the Buckets are the moral good in the story. Kind, benevolent, and loving,

Dahl left no doubt that the Bucket family was incapable of evil. The other children and their

adults would have fallen in the dark grey or black zone on the moral scale. None of them are

actively malicious toward Charlie or Willy Wonka, but they rejected Wonka’s eccentricities as

“balmy…nutty…screwy...wacky…loony”, effectively setting themselves up as Wonka’s

antagonists.19 Since the novel presented Wonka as an absolute figure, the other parents’ and

children’s rejection of him was comparable to blasphemy. Wonka himself, however, was

dubious. The novel purports him to be on the same side as Charlie and Grandpa Joe, yet his

apathy for the other children - he often prioritized the damaged they caused his factory over their

well-being - left him in the moral grey zone. Though high-strung and possessive of his own

factory and workers, Wonka displayed a massive disregard when inflicting the irreparable

damage to the Bucket house: “You mustn’t worry about your house. From now on, you’re never

going to need it again anyway.”20 Even though Wonka scolded the children for taking liberties in

his factory, he was always equipped with a justifiable excuse for wreaking havoc at his own

convenience. Despite all this, according to Dahl characterizes Wonka as someone in the moral

good zone, and thus his attitude and actions were sanctioned as right and proper in the novel.

The first point of interest in the Wonka-God comparison is Wonka’s lack of concern for

the many dangers the children face in the factory and their subsequent fates. His disregard

reflects a certain amount of vindictiveness as opposed to a willingness to open a healthy

discussion on how to right wrongs. Dahl justified this by implying the children’s fates were

overdue - from the moment they are shown in the television all four grandparents are repulsed by

the children’s gluttony and avarice. Wonka did raise protests initially whenever a child got too

close to danger, but it is ambiguous whether these protests were made out of concern for the

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children or in the interest of his own factory. For Augustus Gloop, Wonka seemed wholly

unconcerned with his trip up the pipe and more incensed that the boy ruined his chocolate.21

Likewise he implored Violet, Veruca, and Mike to immediately stop their actions frantically, but

once the consequences of their actions began to show, he displayed a remarkable amount of

calmness and composure. Particularly in the case of Veruca Salt and her parents it is difficult to

say that Wonka had nothing to do with their fall down the garbage chute. While Veruca deserved

the fall for trying to steal on of Wonka’s squirrels, her parents were actively pushed in by the

squirrels for trying to go and save their child.22 Moreover she was understood to have a good

chance of being burned in the incinerator, yet Wonka was nonchalant about the entire situation

and dismissed it because it was possibility and not a certainty. His dispassionate response to the

possibility of the Salts dying and the squirrels pushing in Mr. and Mrs. Salt into the chute implies

that the fates of the children did not disagree with his own ideas of moral justice. It may very

well be that he only maintained the façade of being scandalized for the sake of the other

members of the tour in attendance. Throughout the book, Mr. Wonka’s own thoughts remained

unknown and ambiguous. If one wants an honest assessment of Mr. Wonka’s personal thoughts

on the children and their misfortunes, it would be best to look at the Oompa-Loompa’s songs.

The Oompa-Loompa’s songs were specific and detailed; they articulate every

unflattering thought the reader might have had about the bad children. Each one had been

tailored to condemn each child’s vices and propose possible solutions for them. For Augustus,

they say “The great big greedy nincompoop!/ How long could we allow this beast/ To gorge and

guzzle, feed and feast”; Violet “Some repulsive little bum/ Who’s always chewing chewing

gum!”; Veruca “the little brute…We’ve polished off her parents too!”; Mike, “His brain becomes

as soft as cheese/ He cannot think – he only sees!”23 Interestingly, none of the songs addressed

Choi 18

the specific transgression that warranted the child’s punishment. Instead, their character flaws

were made the point of interest for the songs, and in the Salts’ case, the justification for throwing

Mr. and Mrs. Salt in as well. The elaborate songs raise question as to Wonka’s degree of

involvement in these incidents. In Burton’s film, this doubt was explicitly expressed when Mr.

Salt and some other tour members remarked that the dance was well coordinated and asked how

the Oompa-Loompa’s knew Augustus’ name. While there were no indications Wonka

deliberately fashioned the traps that drew the children in, the whole incident is comparable to

Biblical parables warning against excessive sin - likening Wonka to God and the factory to Eden

or cities of temptation.24 And much in the fashion of retribution theology, the evil continue being

sinful until their sins lead them down to a devastating fate, while the good remain pious and

suffer until the end when God deems it the appropriate time to reward them. Wonka certainly did

not disagree with the punishments, but after the tour he insisted that Charlie and Grandpa Joe

should see the others: “We must go down and take a look at our little friends before we do

anything else.”25 The statement, specifically the word “must”, imbues the punishments of the

children with a new importance that was not emphasized as explicitly before. The implication is

that the punishments the children faced were an integral point of the story. It is understood that

the factory, and by extension, Wonka acted as the paragon of justice in delivering the proper

sentences for the children. And for the novel, justice was retribution and punishing the naughty

children for what they did wrong. While the novel does not seem to question Wonka’s right or

motive in doing so, Stuart is more sympathetic when dealing with the children and Burton

discounts the validity of Wonka’s reactions by changing his character into one that his socially

distant.

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Stuart likely modified his script to be kinder, socially sensitive, and advocate healthier

ideas of justice than Dahl’s vindictive retribution plots. The removal of Mr. Bucket and the hard-

working Mrs. Bucket paid homage to single mothers and single parent families. The original

story of the Oompa-Loompas was based on the African slave trade, and so the characters were

designed with the trademark green hair and orange skin to separate the two. Even the title change

was made with socially vested interest, as “Charlie” was an African-American slang for a white

man.26 There is less focus put on the children’s punishments; the songs were changed to

encourage good behavior in a general sense rather than give a unified performance mocking the

child in question. It should be noted, however, the original Wonka and Stuart’s Wonka share the

same flippancy for the punished children, and in many ways Stuart’s Wonka was even less

transparent about his feelings on the children’s misfortune. But even with Wilder’s rather

unsympathetic portrayal of Wonka, Dahl made a point of showing the unkind fates of the

children in the end and Stuart elected to remove that scene completely, significantly undermining

the importance of their punishments. While Dahl focused on the retribution aspect of the story,

Stuart focused on the honesty and good deeds Charlie did. This returns to Stuart’s

characterization of Charlie as a good and kind boy, but still childish and prone to mistakes.

Justice in Stuart’s film is less interested in dealing out the appropriate punishments, but more

invested in rewarding the good for their deeds. As previously discussed in the previous section,

Stuart changed Charlie’s character to allow him as much agency as he can. While Dahl’s Charlie

was ideal because he respected authority and deferred to it, Stuart’s Charlie was ideal because he

was industrious and conscientious. The moral climax set in when Wonka refused to give Charlie

his lifetime supply of chocolate for drinking the soda-pop, effectively setting himself up as the

antagonist. While Grandpa Joe, Charlie’s closest moral mentor, encouraged the boy to give the

Choi 20

Gobstopper to Slugworth, Charlie handed it back as an admission of guilt and a sign of

repentance. Wonka’s response to this act cemented the values Stuart wanted to push: “So shines

a good deed, in a weary world.” The emphasis on justice is no longer on the other children who

have earned their terrible fates, but it is now on Charlie’s good deeds and honesty. A good

ending and righteousness, according to Stuart, come that the good have be properly

acknowledged and rewarded for their deeds.

Burton takes an entirely different approach. The same emphasis on the necessity of the

children’s punishment is there, but its validity and appropriateness is undermined by the change

in Wonka’s character. Wonka was introduced as an eccentric whose face is perpetually

shadowed under an opulent top hat, and not a well-adjusted one either. His gleeful reaction at the

fiery finale of the puppet show implies he had a taste for destruction and extremes for the sake of

drama. He used notecards and often was at a loss for words, a definite departure from the polite

and eloquent Wonka of the novel and Stuart’s playful and mischievous Wonka. Far from being

polite, he was caustic. While the caustic attitude was attributed to his lacking relationship with

his father and his subsequent unease with families and parental figures, he was more often than

not outright rude to the members of the tour. Whereas the novel’s Wonka and Stuart’s Wonka

were able to at least maintain the façade of being worried and distressed, if only minimally so, by

the misfortunes of the children, Burton’s Wonka was openly nonchalant and casual concerning

his own tour guests. After the first Oompa-Loompa song featuring Augustus Gloop, the other

actors indicate their doubt of the accidental nature of the entire incident. Mr. Salt described the

song as “rather rehearsed”; Mike added to the sentiment by adding “Like they knew what was

going to happen”27 - all concerns which Wonka dispassionately dismissed. He was similarly

amused by the other children’s misfortunes. Wonka’s reactions to the children’s misfortunes

Choi 21

discounts the validity of those punishments by discounting the man himself. Even more than his

phobia of all words and images pertaining to the concept of “family” and his emotional distance

from the children, he often actively enjoyed or was amused by the miserable fates of the

children. Coupled with his normally caustic and unsociable attitude, he gave off the impression

of being more of a sadist than a righteous authority. Despite this the audience still gets a perverse

sense of satisfaction from the casual violence and suffering, though that likely says more about

Burton’s flair for the morbid and society’s own interest in it than it does about Wonka himself.

Yet Wonka’s caustic character was exactly what allowed Charlie to show him the

importance of family and love and bring back the emphasis on awarding the good that Dahl and

Stuart featured. Interestingly, it was the loss of Charlie as his heir that forced Wonka to admit his

wrongs and eventually meet his father again. After Wonka’s personal crisis, he had to defer to

Charlie’s greater experience with filial love, neatly undercutting the previous models of Wonka

as an absolute. Much like the Charlie in the 1971 film, the Wonka of the 2005 film had to admit

his mistakes and take the proper steps to resolving the consequences, in this case reconciling

with his father. The focuses shifted from forcing the other children seeing the error of their ways

and repenting, and instead focused on Wonka’s own admission that he is not better off living in

solitude, made with Charlie’s help. Charlie was then rewarded for being patient with Wonka and

taking the initiative to force him to meet his father by receiving both the factory and keeping his

family, who adopted Wonka as one of their own.

Each adaptation takes a different approach not only to the morals of the story, but what

constitutes as a proper reward for the good Charlie’s behavior. While the punishments of the

children are unchanged across time, the way both Wonka and the other characters handle them

changes slightly to lend the children a more or less sympathetic perspective the suitability of

Choi 22

their punishments. Dahl had a tendency to validate his characters’ violence through humor and

exaggeration, and his retribution based philosophy shines through in this book. By contrast Mel

Stuart and Tim Burton drew the importance of the story away from the retribution aspect and

more towards the Charlie’s goodness. While Dahl based his justice in revenge, Stuart and Burton

focused the justice aspect back onto Charlie and his good deeds.

Conclusion

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is primarily a story about family and parenting. The

theme permeates all aspects from the book, from why Charlie is the boy he is to why the other

children deserved to be thrown into trash chutes. The family relations provides the foundation for

the moral compass of the story and validates the actions of the characters. Even the 1971 film,

which arguably emphasized honesty and diligence over Charlie’s loving family, it should not go

unnoticed that Charlie often acted under the directive of his grandfather. While all three

mediums ultimately emphasis different agendas: Dahl and his retribution, Stuart and honesty,

Burton and filial love, they all advocated the same basic morals and idea of family and proper

parenting. Though wildly dissimilar in many ways, they are all founded on the same philosophies

and it shows through the emphasis on Charlie’s goodness and sense of filial piety.

Choi 23

1Endnotes

Bishop, Tom, “Willy Wonka’s everlasting film plot.” BBC News. 11 July 2005. Web. Accessed 20

April 2014.

2 Dahl, Roald, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 1964).

3 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, directed by Mel Stuart (David L. Wolper Productions,

1971): Aside from the loaf of bread, he also presents an extra coin for Grandpa Joe’s tobacco fund,

neither of which are featured in the novel.

4 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 86; 77.

5 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 70.

6 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 89.

7 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 102.

8 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 115.

9 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 115.

10 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: Grandpa Joe is the primary advocate for encouraging

Charlie’s imagination and experimental actions throughout the film.

11 Pinsent, Pat, “The problem of school: Dahl and Education.” Roald Dahl, Ed. by Ann Alston and

Catherine Butler. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

12 Pinsent, Pat, “The problem of school: Dahl and Education.” Roald Dahl, Ed. by Ann Alston and

Catherine Butler. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

13 Dahl, Roald, Matilda (1988). Dahl, Roald, George’s Marvelous Medicine (1981).

14 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 126

15 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory:

16 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, directed by Mel Stuart (David L. Wolper Productions,

1971)

17 In the scene that introduced the Everlasting Gobstopper, it shows Veruca Salt crossing her fingers

behind her back, the classic sign that the person has no intention of keeping their promise.

Additionally, Wonka hesitates to give Charlie his own Gobstopper and must be prompted to do so

by Grandpa Joe, indicating that he was hoping that Charlie would not take it and thus be worthy of

his factory.

18 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, directed by Tim Burton (Warner Bros. Pictures, 2005):

Charlie is offered five hundred dollars for the ticket, and upon returning home he makes his

intention to sell it known.

19 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 79.

20 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 129.

21 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 70; 73: Wonka’s initial response to Augustus drinking going

up the pipe is “Keep calm…There is no danger!” Later he insists that there is no way Augustus will

be made into fudge because it would ruin his reputation as a chocolatier and the chocolate would

simply be uneatable.

22 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 100-103: Interesting, as Mr. and Mrs. Salt were arguably the

most active in trying to prevent their daughter from permanent harm amongst the other parents.

23 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 74; 90; 103; 119

24 Pulliam, June, “All Grown Up: Filmic Interpretations of Roald Dahl’s Novels.” Roald Dahl, Ed.

by Ann Alston and Catherine Butler. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

25 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: 124

26 Roald Dahl, Ed. by Ann Alston and Catherine Butler. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

27 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, directed by Tim Burton (Warner Bros. Pictures, 2005).