Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Book Review

Roald Dahl was a famous writer during his times. He had all his stories inspired by some incidents in his childhood. He had a childish type of spirit which was locked within him till his death. This childish spirit made him write wonderful stories for children such as BFG (published in 1982), MATILDA (published in 1988), CHARLIE AND CHOCOLATE FACTORY(published in1964), DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD (published in 1975) this list can keep going on and on without stopping. Roald Dahl started first writing for children from the year 1940. He started writing adult fiction by the year 1945. He had an amazing way to write stories. For adults he actually wrotemostly as a third person, so as to get a bird's eye view of the situation. However, Dahl mostly concentrated on a single view, so as to bring about the twist in the next part of the story. Writing as a third person enables him to describe the physical appearances of the characters and give specific details about them. This particular character is normally exaggerated so as to allow the reader to become biased towards him/her. Here he makes use of this biasness to make a twist out of it. Some of the adjectives used are mainly to describe the sense of touch so as to bring about the emotional state of the character. This usage of describing physical appearance so as to show the exact emotional of the character at the state of mind is often attention grabbing as it allows the reader to imagine, instead of telling them what happens directly. He has a creative and humorous style when it comes to writing children's books as in James and the giant peach or The Twits . With lots of sound words, adjectives and humorous poems, his books are as interesting and enjoyable experience for young readers. He uses specific names and figures of speech which complements the different character in their personality and features asin Augustus Gloop to name a fat and greedy boy in the story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. These exaggerate the characters; traits as such making them seem either more evil or a better hero. He also loves to twist words and play around with the sentence structure such as using "Vitches" in dialogs instead of witches to portray the high pitch, screeching voice of the witches. His humorous poems, which sound sadistic at times, are mostly found in children s books. This adds a touch of wackiness to the stories. Such can be found in Charlie and the chocolate factory when he uses them to make fun of the characters when they meet with different accidents. Personification is often used in his works so as to transform the characters, mainly animals, into human-like, where they have a mind of their own and can speak like a real human. The use of animals is used to bring closer the gap of the characters and the young readers themselves. The idea of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory came from Roald Dahl s experience in a sweet shop which had lots of goodies. He has an amazing way to make the reader engrossed inthe book, so much that the reader finds himself enveloped in a Willy Wonka s chocolate factory.

Willy Wonka had opened the largest chocolate factory in the world but had to shut it down because spies stole the recipes and gave it to the factories they worked in .This droveWonka to a loss. A few years later Wonka restarted his factory, without any human help. He hired the Oompa-Loompas. These fun-loving dwarves hailedfrom the Loompaland. These diminutive work forcesfeasted on cacao beans and performed all of the work in the Wonka chocolate factory. They also enjoyed dancing, beating drums, and singing songs about what happens to bad children. One day Wonka decided to allow five children to visit the factory. There was a special prize for the winner. The task was to find one of the five golden tickets hidden beneath the ordinary wrapping papers of five Wonka bars. The five were Augustus Gloop (a greedy boy), Veruca Salt (An over pampered girl), Violet Beauregarde (a girl who chews gum all day), Mike Teavee (a boy who does nothing but watches television) and Charlie Bucket (the protagonist). As they were being guided by Willy Wonka, accidents keep taking place. Augustus Gloop, the corpulent child whose only hobby is eating, finds the first ticket, for which his town throws him a parade. Veruca Salt, an insufferable brat, receives the next ticket from her father, who had employed his entire factory of peanut shellers to unwrap chocolate bars until they found a ticket. Violet Beauregarde discovers the third ticket while taking a break from setting a world record in gum chewing. The fourth ticket goes to Mike Teavee, who, as his name implies, cares only about television.Charlie Bucket, the unsuspecting hero of the book, defies all odds in claiming the fifth and final ticket. A poor but virtuous boy, Charlie lives in a tiny house with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bucket, and all four of his grandparents. His grandparents share the only bed in the house, located in the only bedroom, and Charlie and his parents sleep on mattresses on the floor. Charlie gets three sparse meals a day, which is hardly enough to nourish a growing boy; As a result, he is almost sickly thin. Once a year, on his birthday, Charlie gets one bar of Wonka chocolate, which he savors over many months. The Bucket family s circumstances become all the more dire when Mr. Bucket loses his job. But a tremendous stroke of luck befalls Charlie when he spots a raggedy dollar bill buried in the snow. He decides to use a little of the money to buy himself some chocolate before turning the rest over to his mother. After inhaling the first bar of chocolate, Charlie decides to buy just one more and within the wrapping finds the fifth golden ticket. In the factory, Charlie and Grandpa Joe marvel at the unbelievable sights, sounds, and especially smell of the factory. Whereas they are grateful toward and respectful of Mr. Wonka and his factory, the other four children succumb to their own character flaws. Accordingly, they are ejected from the factory in mysterious and painful fashions .The greedy Augustus falls in the chocolate lake and gets sucked up and taken away to the room where they make the most delicious kind of strawberry flavored chocolate coated fudge. Violet, ignoring Wonka's advice, tries some of his three course dinner gum, swells up like a blueberry and needs to be juiced. Veruca tries to grab a squirrel and ends up falling down the garbage chute in the direction of the incinerator. Mike tries to use Wonka's chocolate teleport machine and ends up shrunken to about 6 inches high. After each child s trial, the Oompa-Loompas beat drums and sing a moralizing song about the downfalls of greedy, spoiled children. After Augustus falls into the chocolate river the song follows the pattern as: Augustus Gloop! Augustus Gloop! The great big greedy nincompoop!

How long could we allow this beast

After Violet tries the three course dinner gum, swells up like a blueberry the song goes as: Dear friends, we surely all agree There s almost nothing worse to see Than some repulsive little bum Who s always chewing chewing-gum

..

After Veruca goes down the garbage chute the song is: Veruca Salt, the little brute, Has just gone down the rubbish chute And my favorite of all is when Mike goes through the teleport machine and ends up to a height of 6 inches. Roald Dahl s poem has been chosen by many poetry books and in the film adaptation of the novel, the poem is very nicely performed. The poem follows the pattern in the following way .. The most important thing we've learned, So far as children are concerned, is never, NEVER, NEVER let them near your television set -Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all

In the end when only Charlie is left, Wonka realizes he has found the perfect match for him who could take up the responsibilities when he dies. He congratulates Charlie on his victory and together with his grandpathey go out for a spin in the great glass elevator. They shoot up into the sky and land into the house where Charlie lived with his grandparents and his parents and soon they realize that Charlie was the next, factory owner after Wonka. The view of society revealed in Dahl's books, in particular his implied criticism of adults and his contempt for social institutions, has received mixed reactions from critics. The main charge leveled against Dahl's work it that his portrayal of life is unrealistic. However, it is arguably this very feature that appeals to his readers; the key to his success, as he frequently acknowledged, was to conspire with children against adults. The Oompa-Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory also became the target of much criticism, and various commentators have accused Dahl of racism on the basis that they represent African pygmies. More recently, critics have sought to puncture the Dahl myth of the subversive, anti-authoritarian figure, revealing the underlying conservatism and nostalgia of his books. Despite the change in his critical fortunes, Dahl's popularity with children and adults alike is enduring and in a recent poll he beat JK Rowling to the accolade of Britain's favorite author. - Guardian.co.uk Critical response to Dahl's children's books has varied from praising him as a genius to declaring his works racist and harmful. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is his most popular and most controversial children's story. Many critics have censured this work for its alleged stereotyping and

inhumanity, and have accused Dahl of racism for his portrayal of the Oompa-Loompas: in the original version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, they are described as black pygmies from deepest Africa who sing and dance and work for nearly nothing. In a revised edition, Dahl changed their appearance and gave them a mythical homeland. Dahl's supporters have argued that in Charlie, as in his other children's books, Dahl follows the traditional fairy tale style, which includes extreme exaggeration and the swift and horrible destruction of evildoers; they contend that children are not harmed by this approach. novelguide.com