Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: Hell on Earth

Roald Dahl has been heralded for his mastery over storytelling in his works of children's literature best known for their fantastical and whimsical nature. His most popular is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which follows the humble “hero” Charlie Bucket as he lives out his dreams of visiting the famed Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and escaping the poverty that pervades his home life. Such a culturally significant piece is worth analyzing with a fresh set of mature lenses, bringing about the observation that the Chocolate Factory in the story can take on multiple identities that each hold deep and significant layers of meaning. The Chocolate Factory most accurately depicts itself as a symbol of Hell rather than as a form of Heaven, through motifs such as Oompa Loompas being imprisoned and enslaved, as well as Wonka’s use of the factory to carry out his twisted desires and motivations. 

    There are strong similarities between Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory and Hell, one of the strongest being the meaning of the factory for the Oompa Loompas, an entire race of creatures who have been specifically captured from their warm natural habitat to work and live in the Chocolate Factory for virtually forever. Wonka proudly tells the story of how he obtained them for his visitors in great detail, “So I shipped them all over here, every man, woman, and child in the Oompa-Loompa tribe. [...] I smuggled them over in large packing cases with holes in them.” (Dahl 73). Wonka enjoys embodying the all-controlling figure and sees no fault in his methods of rendering an entire species immobile in their new residence of freezing England for personal gain. Ironically, rather than the factory being Heaven for the Oompa Loompas as Wonka attempts to suggest, the reader can critically interpret how dark and harrowing the reason and nature of their residence at the factory is. This is further amplified by their use as tools to test out Wonka’s various new inventions within the various factory rooms, one of the most notable being when an Oompa Loompa was given a “Fizzy Lifting Drink,” “I gave some to an old Oompa-Loompa once [...] he went up and up and disappeared out of sight! It was very sad. I never saw him again.’” (Dahl 102). There are parallels between the eternal suffering in Hell and the endless nature of the Oompa Loompa’s labor: they are unpaid and are never offered a share or any ownership despite spending every moment risking their lives for the factory. The Oompa Loompas are hardly unintelligent creatures either, as they are usually the ones with the strongest opinions regarding the children in the form of lyric, “Augustus Gloop!’ chanted the Oompa-Loompas. [...] The great big greedy nincompoop!” (Dahl 180). For Wonka, the factory is his most valuable possession, and the capture of the Oompa Loompas is simply a means to an end, free, disposable labor that does not have the means or capacity to ever threaten his position as owner of the Chocolate Factory, harmless in their helplessness and therefore perfect for his purposes. But for the Oompa Loompas, the factory is a life sentence thinly veiled as a lifeline.

    

    The Chocolate Factory serves as a symbol of Hell through various instances of the children suffering at the hands of what the four walls contain. Wonka takes on a satanic role, running the factory and punishing the children he deems fit to pay for their sins of gluttony, greed, and sloth through various avenues of torture. He punishes Veruca Salt with near death by allowing the Oompa Loompas to push her down the garbage chute; When her mother asks, “Where does the great big pipe go to in the end?” Wonka casually replies, “Why, to the furnace, of course.” (Dahl 110). The setting serves as an instrument for Wonka to carry out his greatest self-righteous fantasies. He invited the children to choose his favorite to take over his role in the future, but that does not justify or excuse the tortuous suffering he happily imposes on the rest of the children. From allowing Augustus Gloop to be sucked into the chocolate pipes, to not emphasizing the danger of the various rooms and activities he lures the children to walk into, “Certainly there’s a television room,’ Mr. Wonka said. ‘That button over there.’ He pointed with his finger. [...] ‘Whoopee!’ shouted Mike Teavee. ‘That’s for me!’” (Dahl 117). This all ultimately leads to the Chocolate Factory becoming a form of hell for the parents and their children, who walk out disfigured or traumatized. The first four children are not the only victims of the famed Chocolate Factory. There is no doubt that Charlie will eventually receive full ownership of the factory and run it, replacing Wonka. Charlie is intentionally written as a selfless and humble little boy, very unlike the rest. But exactly how different from the rest is he? When Charlie finds a fifty-pence piece in the snow, he understands how badly his family is starving, and how dire the circumstances are. But with the fifty-pence, a truly exorbitant amount of money that could significantly help his entire family, he goes to the nearest store to buy chocolate for himself to enjoy. He not only buys one, but he decides to buy another right after, thinking “Surely it wouldn’t matter if [I] spent just one more…” (Dahl 51). That instance was only a warning of what is to come in Charlie’s future. If his behavior at the first sight of tangible money is to spend it on himself when the circumstances are so dire for his loved ones, it is imaginable who he would become or end up like when the Chocolate Factory ultimately becomes his. The Chocolate Factory would certainly be enough to corrupt anyone like it did Willy Wonka, even humble Charlie, until their ruin, with its tantalizing promise of riches and never-ending goods. 

   

    Ultimately, the Chocolate Factory in the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is not the form of Heaven that it hopes to present itself at face value, despite its innovation and ability to bring enormous amounts of delight to children around the world. The Chocolate Factory as shown in the story is a place of suffering and embracing the worst sides of human nature, such as greed, gluttony, wrath, and pride. Willy Wonka abuses his power and allows the factory to take on hellish and devastating meaning for the children he lured in, as well as as a prison for the Oompa Loompas.