Charlie and The Chocolate Factory - A Revisionist Reading

Harp and I just finished Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. It was as good as I remembered it - a wacky tale of hope, fantasy, and socio-economic disparity. I mean - who can forget Veruca Salt's demand for an Oompa-Loompa, "I want an Oompa Loompa Daddy, and I want it now," while Charlie and his family starve and pin their hopes for a golden ticket on Charlie's annual birthday chocolate bar.

I read the book at least ten times when I was young. I've seen the movie a dozen times, but this was my first look back at the text as an adult and let me tell you, I've got some thoughts.

1) The book is a stark portrayal of class politics and consumption. Charlie Bucket is basically a Dicken's character, living on the fringes of society, barely surviving in a pre-welfare state on cabbage soup and his father's pittance as a cap-screwer in a toothpaste factory.

2) The Oompa Loompa's are slaves, working around-the-clock to run Wonka's factory, creating brilliant poetry and being paid solely in cacao beans.

3) Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregaurde, Veruca Salt and Mike TeaVee are kids who, despite their faults and obvious mental illnesses, are punished callously for natural curiosity and desire. Well, maybe not, but in the age of counting and time-outs, juicing little girls and stretching little boys on taffy pullers doesn't really fit with the positive parenting models so many of us try to follow every day.

4) Wonka might want a more sophisticated probate plan than selling a boatload of candy bars and hoping for some undernourished pre-teen with a big heart and no life experience to follow Wonka's plan for making candy for the rest of his life? Just a thought.

But beyond the new criticism, bringing my thirty-eight jaded, PC years to the book, I still loved it - especially when Harp gasped at Violet's fate as a blueberry, or laughed when Veruca and her family earned the assignation of "Bad Nuts" and were hurried into the garbage chute by a contingent of industrious squirrels. I'm not sure why I cried when Charlie found the golden ticket - maybe memories, nostalgia or I'm not as jaded as I thought, but I can't wait to read more Roald Dahl with my best new audience.