“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” in Burton’s View

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For more than five decades, Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has been a bellowed fairy tale of millions of children and adults worldwide. It is an excellent, edifying story about how harmful it is to be greedy, gluttonous, and narcissistic. The incredible 2005 screen version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by inimitable Tim Burton once again rekindled its popularity. While following the Dahl’s moral essence of the tale and the original plot, Burton manages to reflect his vision of the story, focusing on previously undisclosed features of the main characters. Willy Wonka, an extravagant chocolate tycoon, in Burton’s film expresses himself sometimes from rather unexpected sides.

According to Dahl’s book, one day Willy Wonka, the prominent confectioner of his time, who had spent ten years secluded in his factory, announces the raffle for five golden tickets hidden in the Wonka chocolate bars. Those tickets will give the children a once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit his factory and taste every possible sweet there. Moreover, after the end of the excursion, the five lucky ones will be granted a lifetime chocolate supply; and the winner will receive a very special prize. Living in an extremely poor family and receiving chocolate only once a year as a birthday gift, Charlie Bucket can only dream of such a unique opportunity. However, one day fortune favors the boy; he finds 50 cents on the street and decides to buy the worshiped bar of chocolate, even two of them, and the second one is the winning. Charlie joins a fabulous journey by the children’s paradise and, thanks to his honesty, obedience, and unselfishness eventually becomes the only one to get to the end. Willy Wonka chooses Charlie as the heir of his sweet empire.

Throughout the whole book, Willy Wonka shows himself as an extremely active even frenetic character. His passionate about what he does. Grandpa Joe characterizes Wonka as ‘the most amazing, the most fantastic, the most extraordinary chocolate maker the world has ever seen’ (Dahl 2010, p. 15). He is talkative, shrewd and sometimes funny. He cannot bear criticism towards himself and can sometimes resort to harsh words. Willy Wonka is madly in love with his chocolate factory and wants in to be flawless: ‘…So beautiful! I insist upon my rooms being beautiful! I can’t abide ugliness in factories!’ (Dahl 2010, p. 42). Tim Burton’s Willy Wonka shows similar traits, but at the same time, he seems to be even more weird, perhaps because of the general perception of Johnny Depp as an actor with his rich heritage of bizarre roles. Wonka in the film is slightly more mannered and infantile; he is a man of indeterminate age, who devotes excessive attention to his good looks. He often treats people with arrogance and disgust. Comparing the Wonka’s image in the 1971 Mel Stuant’s and 2005 Tim Burton’s film adaptations, Pulliam argues that modern one is substantially closer to Dahl’s original. Wonka of 1971 was depicted as some kind of funny ardent magician, while Burton’s Wonka is more vivid, human, psychologically open and ‘represented with a whimsical, addle-pated genius with awkward-people skills’ (Pulliam 2007, p. 105).

One of the striking Willy Wonka’s characteristics both in the book and in the 2005 movie is his sarcastic humor that sometimes verges on sadism. His ruthlessness can be seen in many situations when the four of Wonka’s guests behave disobediently. For instance, when Augustus Gloop interrupted the process of making chocolate and ended up in the discharge pipe, Wonka only laughed at him, at the same time assuring Gloop’s mother that nothing serious would happen to her son. Veruca Colt may be burned in the garbage oven, but Wonka pretends not to notice her being hauled by the squirrels. Violet Beauregarde could stay blueberry-colored forever. The fate of Mike Teavee, first reduced to the tiny size and then stretched to 3 meters length, is also unknown. Willy Wonka does not seem to be interested in all those children; it may even look that all those accidents were planned by him beforehand.

Those seemingly merciless punishments, however, may be explained. Culley (1991, p. 62 states that Roald Dahl’s prose draws a lot from folklore with its clear and univocal division of the world to good and evil and frequent violence. For Dahl, bad children should be punished, and good should be praised and rewarded; this is the quickest way for the others learn the rules of proper behavior. Dahl’s characters as most of folklore characters ‘lie fairly flat on the page, with exaggerated personal qualities but relatively little roundness to them’ (Culley 1991, p. 63). Dahl derides children’s drawbacks such as greed, gluttony, arrogance, selfishness, capriciousness and TV (and computer games) addiction hobby TV. They emerge mainly because of parents’ indulgence.

The most significant difference of Willy Wonka movie and fairy tale characters is his perception of family. Willy Wonka from the book understands that his loneliness and seclusion is a problem:

I’m an old man. I’m much older than you think. I can’t go on for ever. I’ve got no children of my own, no family at all. So I have to have a child. I want a good sensible, loving child, one to whom I can tell all my most precious sweet-making secrets – while I am still alive (Dahl 2010, p. 127).

However, one will find no descriptions of Wonka’s childhood in the book. Aiming to depict the prerequisites of Wonka’s strange behavior, Burton devotes a couple of scenes to his possible past. Willy’s father was a passionate dentist, who prohibited his son to eat sweets and consistently burned them in the fireplace. Once Willy managed to pick one candy and then secretly tasted it. After that, he decided to devote his life to confectionery. As it can be assumed, the relations with his father were broken. Since that time, Wonka had remained alone, considering a family something evil and depressing. He tries to provide arguments for his lonesomeness: ‘The chocolate manufacturer, he/she has to walk free and alone. He/she has to follow their dreams without to call for the consequences. Look at me. I don’t have any family, and I am a gigantic success’ (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) movie script 2005, p. 31).

For Charlie, such attitude towards family is unacceptable. That is the reason the boy refuses to accept Wonka’s proposition to leave his family and become the future owner of the chocolate factory. Depressed and having no inspiration to create new sweets, Willy Wonka eventually comes to understanding that family matters. Charlie reveals him this truth. Willy makes up with his father and allows Charlie’s family to live with him in the factory. Burton, thus, points out that all our troubles derive from our childhood and should be treated in a complex. Pulliam (2007, p. 114) considers the Burton’s renewed version of Willy Wonka deprived of its quasi-religious shade. He has no supernatural powers and appears as a successful eccentric businessman rather than as a wizard in his chocolate castle.

The character of Willy Wonka is educative not only for children but also for adults. Willy Wonka himself seems to be rather an adult child, than a chocolate god. Behind the mask of weirdness and severity, there is a sensitive small boy, who dreamed of the magic chocolate world. He managed to create this world, but the price is apparently too big. Charlie and Willy perfectly complement each other. The boy has a family and chocolate is his dream, while the Willy owns chocolate rivers but has no family. As Culley (1991, p. 69) aptly notes, Dahl’s mastery is reflected in setting the bridge between the children and adults. This interaction can be viewed not only in terms of children’s upbringing but also as a philosophical concept of spiritual equality and mutual understanding.

All things considered, it can be stated that Tim Burton created a unique character. Willy Wonka is a mixture of controversies, a genius, and a weirdo. His nature is highly versatile, combining kindness and vulnerability with sadism and offishness. Compared with the book analog, Burton’s Willy Wonka is more realistic and human. He makes us more aware of our drawbacks, inspires to believe in human virtue and shows us that our ultimate values can sometimes be reevaluated.

Reference

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie script 2005, Web.

Culley, J 1991, ‘Roald Dahl – “It’s about children and it’s for children” – but is it suitable?’, Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 59-73.

Dahl, R 2010, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Penguin, London, UK.

Pulliam, J 2007, ‘Charlie’s evolving moral universe: filmic interpretations of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the chocolate factory’, in L Stratyner and JR Keller (eds), Fantasy fiction into film: essays, McFarland & Company, Jefferson, NC., pp. 103–14.

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“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” in Burton’s View

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