Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's novel by the British writer Roald Dahl. It features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of an eccentric chocolatier named Willy Wonka.
The story was originally inspired by Dahl's experience of chocolate companies during his schooldays at Repton School in Derbyshire. Cadbury would often send test packages to the schoolchildren in exchange for their opinions on the new products. At that time, Cadbury and Rowntree's were England's two largest chocolate makers and they each often tried to steal trade secrets by sending spies, posing as employees, into the other's factory—inspiring Dahl's idea for the recipe-thieving spies depicted in the book. Because of this, both companies became highly protective of their chocolate-making processes. It was a combination of this secrecy and the elaborate, often gigantic, machines in the factory that inspired Dahl to write the story.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is frequently ranked among the most popular works in children's literature. In 2012 Charlie Bucket brandishing a Golden Ticket appeared on a Royal Mail first-class stamp in the UK. The novel was first published in the US by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1964 and in the UK by George Allen & Unwin 11 months later. The book's sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, was published in 1972. Dahl planned a third instalment in the series, but never finished it.
The book has been adapted into two major motion pictures: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A standalone film exploring Willy Wonka's origins, simply titled Wonka, was released in 2023. The book has spawned a media franchise with multiple video games, theatrical productions and merchandise.
Plot
Charlie Bucket is a kind and loving boy who lives in poverty with his parents and grandparents in a town which is home to the world-famous Wonka's Chocolate Factory. One day, Charlie's bedridden Grandpa Joe tells him about Willy Wonka, the factory's eccentric owner, and all of his fantastical candies. Rival chocolatiers sent in spies to steal Wonka's recipes, forcing him to close the factory and disappear. Wonka reopened the factory years later, but the gates remain locked, and nobody knows who is providing the factory with its workforce because no people are seen going out or coming in.The next day, the newspaper announces that Wonka has hidden five Golden Tickets in Wonka Bars; the finders of these tickets will be invited to a tour of the factory. The first four tickets are found by gluttonous Augustus Gloop, spoilt Veruca Salt, the compulsive gum-chewer Violet Beauregarde, and the television addict Mike Teavee. During the mad rush to find the Golden Tickets, Charlie's attempts to find a Golden Ticket fail: on the first try, on Charlie's birthday, his parents give him a Wonka bar that turns out nothing; on the second try, with encouragement from Grandpa Joe, Charlie buys another Wonka bar using some of Grandpa Joe's secret savings, but that too yields no ticket. On another instance, several days after his father loses his job at a toothpaste factory that closes, Charlie buys two Wonka Bars with some money he found in the snow. When he opens the second bar, Charlie discovers that it contains the fifth and final ticket. Later, on hearing the news, Grandpa Joe suddenly regains his mobility and volunteers to accompany Charlie to the factory.
On the day of the tour, which is the very next day, Wonka welcomes the five children and the adults inside the factory, a wonderland of confectionery creations that defy logic. They also meet the Oompa-Loompas, a race of impish humanoids who help him operate the factory as thanks for him rescuing them from a land of dangerous monsters and with his promise to provide them with cocoa beans. During the tour, the four other children give in to their respective impulses and are ejected from the tour in darkly comical ways: Augustus falls into the Chocolate River and he's sucked up by a pipe, Violet turns blue while inflating into a giant human blueberry after chewing an experimental stick of three-course dinner gum ending with a blueberry pie flavour, Veruca and her parents fall down a rubbish chute after she tries to capture one of the nut-testing squirrels, and Mike is shrunk after misusing a machine that sends chocolate by television — all despite Wonka's warnings. The Oompa-Loompas sing about the children's misbehaviour each time disaster strikes.
With only Charlie remaining, Wonka congratulates him for "winning" the factory. Wonka explains that the whole tour was secretly designed to help him find a worthy heir to his business, and Charlie was the only child whose innocence and good nature passed the test. They ride the Great Glass Elevator and watch Augustus Violet Veruca Mike and all their parents leave the factory by boarding trucks loaded to the brim with Wonka products before flying to Charlie's house, where Wonka invites the entire Bucket family to come and live with him inside his factory.
Characters
Publication
Race, editing, and censorship
Dahl's widow said that Charlie was originally written as "a little black boy." Dahl's biographer said the change to a white character was driven by Dahl's agent, who thought a black Charlie would not appeal to readers.In the first published edition, the Oompa-Loompas were described as African pygmies, and were drawn this way in the original printed edition. After the announcement of a film adaptation sparked a statement from the American group NAACP, which expressed concern that the transportation of Oompa-Loompas to Wonka's factory resembled slavery, Dahl found himself sympathising with their concerns and published a revised edition. In this edition, as well as the subsequent sequel, the Oompa-Loompas were drawn as being white and appearing similar to hippies, and the references to Africa were deleted.
In 2023 the publisher Puffin made more than eighty additional changes to the original text of the book, such as: removing every occurrence of the word fat ; removing most references to the Oompa-Loompa's diminutive size and physical appearance and omitting descriptions of them living in trees and wearing deerskins and leaves; removing or changing the words mad, crazy and queer; omitting many references to Mike Teavee's toy guns; and removing references to corporal punishment.
| 1964 text | 1973 revised text | 2023 text |
| 'If he's perfectly safe, then where is he?' snapped Mrs Gloop. 'Lead me to him this instant!' Mr Wonka turned around and clicked his fingers sharply, click, click, click, three times. Immediately, an Oompa-Loompa appeared, as if from nowhere, and stood beside him. The Oompa-Loompa bowed and smiled, showing beautiful white teeth. His skin was almost pure black, and the top of his fuzzy head came just above the height of Mr Wonka's knee. He wore the usual deerskin slung over his shoulder. 'Now listen to me,' said Mr Wonka, looking down at the tiny man. | 'If he's perfectly safe, then where is he?' snapped Mrs Gloop. 'Lead me to him this instant!' Mr Wonka turned around and clicked his fingers sharply, click, click, click, three times. Immediately, an Oompa-Loompa appeared, as if from nowhere, and stood beside him. The Oompa-Loompa bowed and smiled, showing beautiful white teeth. His skin was rosy-white, his hair was golden brown, and the top of his head came just above the height of Mr Wonka's knee. He wore the usual deerskin slung over his shoulder. 'Now listen to me,' said Mr Wonka, looking down at the tiny man. | 'If he's perfectly safe, then where is he?' snapped Mrs Gloop. 'Lead me to him this instant!' An Oompa-Loompa appeared, as if from nowhere, and stood beside him. 'Now listen to me,' said Mr Wonka, looking down at the man. |
Unused chapters
Various unused and draft material from Dahl's early versions of the novel have been found. In the initial, unpublished drafts of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, nine golden tickets were distributed to tour Willy Wonka's secret chocolate factory and the children faced more rooms and more temptations to test their self-control. Some of the names of the children cut from the final work include:- Clarence Crump, Bertie Upside and Terence Roper
- Elvira Entwhistle
- Violet Glockenberry
- Miranda Grope and Augustus Pottle
- Miranda Mary Piker
- Marvin Prune
- Wilbur Rice and Tommy Troutbeck, the subjects of The Vanilla Fudge Room
- Herpes Trout
"Spotty Powder"
In an early draft, sometime after being renamed from Miranda Grope to Miranda Piker, but before "Spotty Powder" was written, she falls down the chocolate waterfall and ends up in the Peanut-Brittle Mixer. This results in the "rude and disobedient little kid" becoming "quite delicious." This early draft poem was slightly rewritten as an Oompa-Loompa song in the lost chapter, which now puts her in the "Spotty-Powder mixer" and instead of being "crunchy and... good " she is now "useful and... good."