Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 1964 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. The story features the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka.[1]
This article is about the novel. For other uses, see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (disambiguation).Author
- Joseph Schindelman (first and revised US editions)
- Faith Jaques (first UK edition)
- Michael Foreman (1985 edition)
- Quentin Blake (1995 edition)
English
- George Allen & Unwin (original)
- Puffin Books (1995–2006)
- Scholastic (current)
17 January 1964 (US version)
23 November 1964 (UK version)
United Kingdom
Unknown
The story was originally inspired by Roald 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.[2] At that time (around the 1920s), 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 (such as Wonka's rival Slugworth) depicted in the book.[3] 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.[4]
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is frequently ranked among the most popular works in children's literature.[5][6][7] In 2012, Charlie Bucket brandishing a Golden Ticket appeared in a Royal Mail first class stamp in the UK.[8] The novel was first published in the U.S. by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1964 and in the U.K. by George Allen & Unwin 11 months later. The book's sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, was written by Dahl in 1971 and published in 1972. Dahl had also planned to write a third book in the series but never finished it.[9]
The book has also been adapted into two major motion pictures: Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory in 1971 and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2005. A stand-alone film exploring Willy Wonka's origins titled Wonka was released in 2023. The book has spawned a media franchise with multiple video games, theatrical productions and merchandise.
Plot[edit]
Charlie Bucket lives in poverty with his parents and grandparents in a town which is home to a world-famous 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 his recipes, forcing Wonka to close the factory and disappear. He reopened the factory years later, but the gates remain locked and nobody knows who is providing the factory with its workforce.
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 come and tour the factory. The first four tickets are found by gluttonous Augustus Gloop, spoiled Veruca Salt, gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde, and television addict Mike Teavee. One day, Charlie buys a Wonka Bar with some money he found in the snow; the bar contains the fifth and final ticket. Upon hearing the news, Grandpa Joe regains his mobility and volunteers to accompany Charlie to the factory.
On the day of the tour, Wonka welcomes the five children and their parents 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. During the tour, the other four children give in to their impulses and are ejected from the tour in darkly comical ways: Augustus falls into the Chocolate River and is sucked up a pipe, Violet turns into a giant blueberry after chewing an experimental stick of three-course dinner gum, Veruca and her parents fall down a garbage chute after the former tries to capture one of the nut-testing squirrels, and Mike is shrunk down to the size of a chocolate bar after misusing the Television Chocolate device 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 designed to help him find a worthy heir to his business, and Charlie was the only child whose inherent genuineness passed the test. They ride the Great Glass Elevator and watch the other four children leave the factory before flying to Charlie's house, where Wonka invites the entire Bucket clan to come and live with him in the factory.
In a 2006 list for the Royal Society of Literature, author J. K. Rowling (author of the Harry Potter books) named Charlie and the Chocolate Factory among her top ten books that every child should read.[31] A fan of the book since childhood, film director Tim Burton wrote: "I responded to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because it respected the fact that children can be adults."[32][33]
A 2004 study found that it was a common read-aloud book for fourth-graders in schools in San Diego County, California.[34] A 2012 survey by the University of Worcester determined that it was one of the most common books that UK adults had read as children, after Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The Wind in the Willows.[35]
Groups who have praised the book include:
In the 2012 survey published by SLJ, a monthly with primarily US audience, Charlie was the second of four books by Dahl among their Top 100 Chapter Books, one more than any other writer.[40] Time magazine in the US included the novel in its list of the 100 Best Young-Adult Books of All Time; it was one of three Dahl novels on the list, more than any other author.[41] In 2016 the novel topped the list of Amazon's best-selling children's books by Dahl in Print and on Kindle.[42] In 2023, the novel was ranked by BBC at no. 18 in their poll of "The 100 greatest children's books of all time".[43]
Although the book has always been popular and considered a children's classic by many literary critics, a number of prominent individuals have spoken unfavourably of the novel over the years.[44] Children's novelist and literary historian John Rowe Townsend has described the book as "fantasy of an almost literally nauseating kind" and accused it of "astonishing insensitivity" regarding the original portrayal of the Oompa-Loompas as African black pygmies, although Dahl did revise this in later editions.[45] Another novelist, Eleanor Cameron, compared the book to the sweets that form its subject matter, commenting that it is "delectable and soothing while we are undergoing the brief sensory pleasure it affords but leaves us poorly nourished with our taste dulled for better fare."[30]
Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in support of this assessment in a letter to The Horn Book Review, saying that her own daughter would turn "quite nasty" upon finishing the book.[46] Dahl responded to Cameron's criticisms by noting that the classics that she had cited would not be well received by contemporary children.[47]
The book has been recorded a number of times: