Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
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| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | |
 Original book cover of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory featuring an illustration by Joseph Schindelman |
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| Author | Roald Dahl |
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| Original title | play |
| Illustrator | Joseph Schindelman (original) Quentin Blake (1998 editions onward) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Children's Fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (original) Penguin Books (current) |
| Publication date | 1964 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback, Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-394-91011-7 |
| Followed by | Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator |
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) is a children's book by Welsh author Roald Dahl. This story of the adventures of young Charlie Bucket inside the chocolate factory of eccentric candymaker Willy Wonka is often considered one of the most beloved children's stories of the 20th century.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was first published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1964, and in the United Kingdom by George Allen & Unwin in 1967. The book was adapted into two major motion pictures: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in 1971, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film) in 2005. The book's sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, was written by Roald Dahl in 1972.
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[edit] Synopsis
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This story revolves around a boy called Charlie Bucket and the strange happening at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Charlie Bucket is not stronger, faster or better than other children; his family is not rich, powerful, or well connected. But, he was the luckiest boy in the entire world, he just didn't know it yet. He lives next to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory although he is not able to get as many chocolate bars as he wants.
His grandparents (particularly Grandpa Joe), are fantastic storytellers and tell him about the chocolate factory and how it was closed and all the workers were fired due to spies. Suddenly Willy Wonka sends five "Golden Tickets" into the world that states that one child will receive a special prize at the end of a tour of the factory, and these are found by Augustus Gloop (a gluttonous chocoholic), Veruca Salt (a spoiled self obsessed brat), Violet Beureguarde (a competitive bubble gum champion), Mike Teavee (an obsessive fan of T.V and violence)and Charlie Bucket (the luckiest boy in the entire world). Four great disasters occur-- 1: Augustus Gloop falls in the chocolate river and is sucked to a place that makes strawberry flavoured chocolate coated fudge. 2: Violet Beureguarde doesn't heed Wonka's warning and eats a three-course dinner thats made into a stick of gum and turns blue and swells like blueberry. 3: Veruca Salt tries to take a squirrel and gets thrown down the garbage chute. 4: Mike Teavee is transported into a T.V in the T.V room. Each of these events is accompanied by a song composed by the Oompa Loompas, and at the end Willy Wonka gives Charlie the prize: ownership of the whole factory.
[edit] Criticisms
Although the book has always been popular, over the years a number of prominent individuals have spoken critically of the novel. Children's novelist and literary historian John Rowe Townsend has described the book as "fantasy of an almost literally nauseating kind" and accusing it of "astonishing insensitivity" regarding the original portrayal of the Oompa-Loompas as black pygmies[1] , although Dahl did revise this later. Another novelist, Eleanor Cameron, compared the book to the candy that forms 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".[2] Ursula Le Guin voiced her support for this assessment in a letter to Cameron.[3] Defenders of the book have pointed out that it was unusual for its time in being quite dark for a children's book, with the "antagonists" not being adults or monsters (as is the case even for most of Dahl's books) but the naughty children.
[edit] Other Rooms
There is a selection of themed rooms in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory which highlight a certain product or product development. Children on the tour meet an ironic, somewhat disturbing calamity in many of the rooms. A good example of this is the famous Chocolate Room. Everything in the room is edible, including the grass. It has a hot-melted chocolate waterfall that mixes the chocolate to a perfect texture. There are pipes that move the chocolate to different points within the factory. Augustus Gloop falls into the chocolate river and is sucked into a pipe that goes to the Fudge Room.
Other rooms which are predominantly featured are the Inventing Room where Violet Beauregarde turns into a blueberry and is moved to the Juicing Room. The Nut Sorting Room is where Veruca Salt is thrown down the garbage chute with her father. The Television Room is where Mike Teavee shrinks; he is stretched out in the Chewing Gum Stretching Room.
Other rooms, hinted at but not visited, are listed below in alphabetical order. Each is given the name of the product it contains, which is presumably made or extracted there.
- '"Butterscotch And Buttergin"'
- '"Candy-Coated pencils for Sucking"'
- '"Cavity-Filling Caramels– No more dentists"'
- '"Coconut-Ice Skating Rinks"'
- '"Cows that give Chocolate Milk"'
- '"Eatable Marshmallow Pillows"'
- '"Exploding Candy for your Enemies"'
- '"Fizzy Lemonade Swimming Pools"'
- '"Fizzy Lifting Drinks"'
- '"Hot Ice Creams for Cold Days"'
- '"Invisible Chocolate Bars for Eating in Class"'
- '"Lickable Wallpaper for Nursery Walls"'
- '"Luminous Lollies for Eating in Bed at Night"'
- '"Magic Hand-Fudge– When you hold it in your hand, you taste it in your mouth"'
- '"Mint Jujubes for the Boy Next Door– They'll give him green teeth for a month"'
- '"Rainbow Drops– Suck them and you can spit in seven different colours."'
- '"Square Sweets that Look Round"' (candy cubes with faces painted on them, and when the door is opened they all look round to see who it is)
- '"Stickjaw for Talkative Parents"'
- '"Storeroom Number 54; All the Creams– Dairy Cream, Whipped Cream, Coffee Cream, Clotted Cream, Vanilla Cream, and Hair Cream"'
- '"Storeroom Number 71; Whips– all Shapes and Sizes"'
- '"Storeroom Number 77– All the Beans, Cacao Beans, Coffee Beans, Jelly Beans, and Has Beans"'
- '"Strawberry-Juice Water Pistols"'
- '"Supervitamin-Chocolate"'
- '"The Rock-Candy Mine"'
- '"Toffee-Apple Trees For Planting in Your Garden– All Sizes"'
- '"Wriggle-Sweets That Wriggle Delightfully in your Tummy after Swallowing"'
[edit] Book revisions
The original story was quite different than the current revision. In 1961, the manuscript for "Charlie's Chocolate Boy" was born. In the original manuscript, ten golden tickets were hidden in Wonka chocolate bars every week. Mr. Wonka gave a tour of his factory every Saturday to that week's lucky recipients. In this draft, Charlie Bucket finds a ticket on his first attempt. The other nine children on the factory tour are not introduced to the reader until they meet their respective ends:
- Augustus Gloop falls in the chocolate river.
- Violet Beuragarde turns purple after chewing the three-course-meal gum.
- Veruca Salt falls foul of the squirrels in the Nut Room.
- "Mike Teevee" sends himself through a machine to demonstrate its potential use as a transporter and gets smaller.
Charlie Bucket climbs into a "chocolate boy" mold in the Easter Egg room and is encased in chocolate. He is taken to Mr. Wonka's house as a present for Freddie Wonka (Mr. Wonka's son). While there, Charlie witnesses a burglary. As a reward for helping to catch the burglars, Mr. Wonka gives him his own sweet shop, "Charlie's Chocolate Shop." This original manuscript didn't include Oompa Loompas, Grandpa Joe, or most of the characters that would eventually make it into the final draft.
Responding to criticisms from the NAACP, Canadian children's author Eleanor Cameron, and others for the book's portrayal of the Oompa Loompas as dark skinned and skinny African pygmies working in Wonka’s factory for cacao beans, Dahl changed some of the text, and Schindelman replaced some illustrations (the illustrations for the British version were also changed). This new version was released in 1973 in the USA. In the revised version the Oompa Loompas are described as having funny long golden-brown hair and rosy-white skin. Their origins were also changed from Africa to fictional Loompaland.
[edit] Lost chapter
In 2005, a short chapter which had been deleted during the editing of the book circulated, entitled "Spotty Powder". The chapter featured the elimination of Miranda Piker, a "teacher's pet" with a head master father.
Wonka introduces the group to a new candy that will make children temporarily appear sick so that they can miss school that day, which enrages Miranda and her father. They vow to stop the candy from being made, and storm into the secret room where it is made. Two screams are heard, and Wonka agrees with the distraught Mrs. Piker that they were surely ground into Spotty Powder, and were indeed needed all along for the recipe, as "We’ve got to use one or two schoolmasters occasionally or it wouldn’t work." He then reassures Mrs. Piker that he was joking. Mrs. Piker is escorted to the boiler room by the Oompa-Loompas, who sing a short song about how delicious Miranda's classmates will find her.
"The secret ordeal of Miranda Piker" can be read here.
[edit] Derivations
The book was first made into a feature film as a musical titled Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, directed by Mel Stuart, produced by David L. Wolper and starring Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, character actor Jack Albertson as Grandpa Joe and Peter Ostrum as Charlie Bucket. Released worldwide on June 30, 1971 and distributed by Paramount Pictures, the film had an estimated budget of $3 M. Although the movie grossed only $4 M and was considered a box-office flop, it is now considered a classic.[citation needed] Stories concerning author Roald Dahl's immense dissatisfaction with this film are legendary; in fact, he was so unhappy that he refused to ever watch the completed film in its entirety. Once, while staying in a hotel, he accidentally tuned into a television airing of the movie, but reportedly changed the channel immediately when he realized what he was watching.[citation needed]
Another film version, entitled Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and directed by Tim Burton, was released on July 15, 2005; this version starred Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket. The Brad Grey production was a hit, grossing about $470 M worldwide with an estimated budget of $150 M. It was distributed by Warner Bros. this time. The 1971 and 2005 films are consistent with the written work to varying degrees. The Burton film in particular greatly expanded Willy Wonka's personal backstory. Both films likewise heavily expanded the personalities of the four "bad" children and their parents.
It has also been produced by Swedish Television as still drawings narrated by Ernst-Hugo Järegård.
Concurrently with the 1971 film, a line of candies was introduced in North America and Oceania that uses the book's characters and imagery for its marketing. Presently sold in in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the candies are produced in the United States, New Zealand, the Czech Republic and Brazil, by Nestlé.
In 1985, the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory video game was released for the ZX Spectrum by developers Soft Option Ltd and publisher Hill MacGibbon.
On July 11, 2005, the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory video game was released for the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo's Game Boy Advance, and Windows PC by developers Backbone and High Voltage Software and publisher 2K Games.
On 1 April 2006, the British theme park Alton Towers opened a family boat ride attraction themed around Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. The ride features a boat section where guests travel around the chocolate factory in bright pink boats on a chocolate river. In the final stage of the ride, guests will enter one of two glass elevators where they will join Willy Wonka as they travel the factory, eventually shooting up and out through the glass roof.
[edit] Awards and nominations
- New England Round Table of Children's Librarians Award (USA 1972)
- Surrey School Award (UK 1973)
- Millennium Children's Book Award (UK 2000)
- Blue Peter Book Award (UK 2000)
[edit] Editions
- ISBN 0-394-81011-2 (hardcover, 1973, revised Oompa Loompa edition)
- ISBN 0-87129-220-3 (paperback, 1976)
- ISBN 0-14-031824-0 (paperback, 1985, illustrated by Michael Foreman)
- ISBN 1-85089-902-9 (hardcover, 1987)
- ISBN 0-606-04032-3 (prebound, 1988)
- ISBN 0-89966-904-2 (library binding, 1992, reprint)
- ISBN 0-14-130115-5 (paperback, 1998)
- ISBN 0-375-81526-0 (hardcover, 2001)
- ISBN 0-375-91526-5 (library binding, 2001)
- ISBN 0-14-240108-0 (paperback, 2004)
- ISBN 0-8488-2241-2 (hardcover)
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] External links
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