Literature and Politics - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

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Literature and Politics

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

By Roald Dahl

Dahl’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory is an unusual piece of literature; accepted by children and adults alike today as an exciting fantasy world, though originally criticised as racist, politically incorrect and immoral. Today’s revision of the novel has therefore been adapted for a racially aware society. Nevertheless, it can still be seen as akin to a communist fantasy world; the Oompa Loompas are all equal and work for the common good, and the children (with the exception of Charlie, the underdog who ultimately benefits from the dictator- like figure Willy Wonka) are symbols of capitalism, such as the gluttonous Augustus Gloop and the spoilt Veruca Salt, who come to their end through “sadistic or extreme” retribution. The novel, therefore, appears to combine in the microcosm of the chocolate factory the religious- based ethics and retributive justice portrayed in Victorian morality plays with a communist style dictatorship reminiscent of Marx’s ultimate utopia.

The analogy of the factory as a symbol of communism, a criticism directed at Dahl’s other novels such as James and the Giant Peach, is prevalent throughout the book. Charlie’s father Mr Bucket, for example, is the epitome of the poor worker in a capitalist system; “however hard he worked…. [he] was never able to buy one half of the things that so large a family needed.” When the competition is announced, Grandpa George declares that the people who will win the tickets “are the ones who can afford to buy bars of chocolate every day;” in other words, children in stereotypically capitalist families. The criticism of capitalism is reinforced as the children are revealed as representing some of the seven deadly sins; Augustus Gloop is gluttonous, Veruca Salt is avaricious, Violet Beauregarde is prideful, and Mike Teavee, “A boy who does nothing but watch television,” is slothful. In contrast, as Cassandra Pierce notes, Charlie shows a “complete lack of these characteristics;” poor, hungry, and refusing to eat his grandparents’ food. When he “wins” the factory at the end of the novel, it not only represents the triumph of the righteous being over the “unholy” who have gone to be “cleansed,” but also symbolises the rise to power of the poor overturning the rich, as Marx predicted.

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In addition to this, Willy Wonka is represented as a dictator with sinister undertones that many readers fail to realise. As Stalin and Lenin did, for example, he restricts freedom of speech, refusing to listen to complaints or questions. For example when Mike Teavee asks why Wonka makes gum in his factory if he thinks “it is so disgusting,” Wonka replies “I do wish you wouldn’t mumble.” This is repeated throughout the book with Wonka claiming that he is “a little deaf in my left ear” and telling the children “Don’t argue…. It’s such a waste of precious time!” Furthermore, the chocolate ...

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