Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

Summary

About the Author – Roald Dahl

 He was born in 1916 in Wales, United Kingdom

 His father died when Roald was four years old.
 Roald hated school, saying it was full of misery and rules.
 He liked to play pranks in school, and was severely beaten by the principal for
placing a dead mouse in the candy jar.
 His favorite part of school was the sample chocolate boxes sent from the
Cadbury chocolate factory nearby.
 He was a World War II fighter pilot, and was injured in a crash.
 Afterwards, a friend suggested he become a writer.
 He married an actress and had five children.
 The first book he wrote for his children was James and the Giant Peach. He
wrote movie scripts, and many other children’s books including Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory.
 Steps in Chocolate-Making Process

1) Cocoa trees produce cocoa pods with 30-40 seeds (beans)

2) Beans removed from pods and soak under banana leaves
3) Dry beans in sun
4) Beans cleaned & roasted
5) Crack & remove center
6) Centers ground and heated / turned to liquid
7) Cocoa butter pressed out and separated from chocolate
8) Chocolate block sent to milk factory, mixed with milk and sugar
9) Chocolate is shaped & cooled

Genre: Magical Fantasy

Literary Devices

Idioms: “pulling my leg”, “they’ll all come out in the wash”, “bad nuts”

Metaphors: “smoke belching from the chimney”

Similes: “as shriveled as prunes”, “bony as skeletons”, “wind like a knife on his
cheek”, “like a giant mushroom”

Personification: “Square Candies the Look ‘Round”

Foils: Each of the other four children are a “foil” or contrast to Charlie.

Conflicts
 The Children vs. Themselves
 Charlie vs. Society

Themes

 Hope
 Belief in the Impossible

Moral Lessons

 Listen to good advice.

 Things in the world do not last forever.
 There are consequences for disobedience.

Main Characters

Charlie Bucket: He is the main protagonist who wins the fifth Golden Ticket to
Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. He comes from a very poor family who
struggles to have enough food. He is obedient and respectful, in contrast to the other
four Golden Ticket winners. He is a static character whose good character never
changes throughout the story.

Willy Wonka: He is the genius factory owner who is constantly coming up with
new and more impressive chocolates and candies. He is kind and funny, but does
not tolerate disrespect and disobedience. He is looking for someone to take over his
chocolate factory.

Grandpa Joe: He is the oldest of Charlie’s four grandparents. He was 96 years old
and, “just about as old as anybody can be”. He knows the most about Willy
Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, and is the one to take Charlie to the factory when he
wins the Golden Ticket.

Mr. Bucket: He is Charlie’s father who struggles to provide for his family. He
works in a toothpaste factory, but can’t make enough money to buy a big enough
house or enough food for the family.

Augustus Gloop – see characterization in Lit Student Book

Veruca Salt - see characterization Lit Student Book

Violet Beauregarde - see characterization Lit Student Book

Mike Teavee - see characterization Lit Student Book

Oompa-Loompas - see characterization Lit Student Book

Quotes

“For perhaps half an hour every night this room would become a happy place, and
the whole family would forget that it was hungry and poor.”

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,

Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install,
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.”

Important Events

 Four spoiled children find Golden Tickets.

 Charlie finds the Golden Ticket.
 Augustus Gloop disobeys and is shot up into chocolate pipes.
 Violet Beauregarde disobeys and turns into a blueberry.
 Veruca Salt disobeys and is thrown down the garbage chute.
 Mike Teavee disobeys, disappears and comes back shrunk.
 Charlie Bucket wins and rides up the glass elevator.
 Willy Wonka offers the entire chocolate factory to Charlie.
 Chapter Summaries with Vocabulary

Chapter 1
Charlie Bucket and his grandparents and parents are introduced. They are a very
poor family who lives in a small wooden house “on the edge of a great town”. Mr.
Bucket worked in a toothpaste factory and barely made enough to feed the family.

Mattresses
Tummies
Nibble

Chapter 2
The whole family would gather in the grandparents room while they told stories at
night. Grandpa Joe begins to tell Charlie about Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

Marshmallows

Chapter 3
Grandpa Joe tells Charlie about Prince Pondicherry’s chocolate palace. Willy
Wonka built it with the warning to eat it before it melts. Prince Pondicherry did not
listen and his palace melted

Colossal

Chapter 4
Grandpa Joe tells Charlie about the spies in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. He
has to fire them all. Now, nobody goes out and nobody goes in. However, they see
shadows of tiny little workers in the windows.

Chapter 5
Willy Wonka announces five Golden Tickets. Whoever finds a Golden Ticket in
their chocolate bars can come to his factory and will receive a lifetime supply of
chocolate.

Chapter 6
 Augustus Gloop, a fat boy who eats candy bars all day, wins the first Golden
Ticket. Veruca Salt, a spoiled brat whose father bought up thousands of chocolate
bars, found the second Golden Ticket.

Gangster
Dagger
Yanking

Chapter 7
Charlie opens his one birthday chocolate bar. To his disappointment, there is no
Golden Ticket in his chocolate bar.

Chapter 8
Two more “beasts” win the next two Golden Tickets. One is Violet Beauregarde
who is obsessed with chewing gum. The second child is Mike Teavee, who is
named appropriately, as he watches TV all the time.

Flagging

Chapter 9
Grandpa Joe secretly spends the last big of his saved money on one more chocolate
bar for Charlie. However, he does not find the last Golden Ticket.

Rummaging

Chapter 10
It is a very cold winter and Mr. Bucket has lost his job. Slowly the whole family
begins to starve. Charlie is hungriest of all when all of a sudden…he finds a dollar
bill in the snow.

Gutter

Chapter 11
Charlie buys a candy bar with part of the dollar and wolfs it down. He then buys
another candy bar and finds the last Golden Ticket inside. People begin crowding
around and wanting to buy it from him.

Gut-Ache
 Chapter 12
Charlie runs home and shows the Golden Ticket to his amazed family. Mr. Bucket
reads the letter from Willy Wonka and the newspapers burst in to interview Charlie.

Hurricane
Perplex

Chapter 13
Grandpa Joe takes Charlie to the factory. They wait in the crowd for the factory to
open as a crowd of reports comment.

Hinges

Chapter 14
Willy Wonka excitedly greets children and parents. He then begins the tour of the
factory.

Plum
Bustled

Chapter 15
Children, parents, and Grandpa Joe follow Willy Wonka and begin their tour of the
factory.

Chapter 16
The children see the Oompa-Loompas. Willy Wonka tells their history and explains
how he brought them to the factory.

Eucalyptus

Chapter 17
Augustus eats chocolate without permission, falls into the chocolate and gets
sucked into the pipes and shot up into the fudge room. His parents are furious.
Willy Wonka sends the Oompa-Loompas to take them up to the fudge room.

Giggling

Chapter 18
 The others follow Willy Wonka into a boat riding in chocolate. Mike Teavee is
licking the boat, Veruca Salt wants everything she sees, but Charlie is content to
soak in everything. Willy Wonka gives Charlie and Grandpa Joe a drink of
chocolate.

Spotlessly
Poached

Chapter 19
Willy Wonka explains Gobstoppers and Hair Toffee.

Gooey

Chapter 20
Willy Wonka gives a tour and explanation of gum production.

Popped

Chapter 21
Violet grabs a piece of gum when he has told her it isn’t ready. It tastes like tomato
soup, beef, then blueberry. She however, turns into a blueberry. The Oompa-
Loompa’s take her off to “juice her”.

Spellbound
Wringing

Chapter 22
Willy Wonka continues the tour, showing and explaining Hot Ice Creams for Cold
Days, Cows that Produce Chocolate Milk, and Fizzy Lifting Drinks.

Whistle
Mumble
Burped

Chapter 23
Willy Wonka shows the Square Candies that “Look ‘Round”. The adults on the tour
begin to get tired.

Chapter 24
 Veruca Salt disobeys, going to get herself a squirrel. They throw her down the
garbage chute with the other “bad nuts”. They also push her parents in after her.

Walnuts
Chute
Hollow
Parakeets

Chapter 25
Willy Wonka takes the remaining children and their chaperones on a scarry elevator
ride to the Television Chocolate.

Swerved
Precipice

Chapter 26
Willy Wonka demonstrates how Television Chocolate works.

Knobs

Chapter 27
Mike Teavee disobeys and is sent by television. He comes back shrunk. Mr. Teavee
decides no more TV for him. The Oompa-Loompas take him off to stretch him.

Squeals

Chapter 28
Charlie is the only one left. “You’ve Won!”, Willy Wonka tells him. Then they get
into the glad elevator and shoot up through the roof. The elevator then turns into a
helicopter.

Craned

Chapter 29
The other four children come out much changed, as a consequence of their
disobedience.

Truckload
 Chapter 30
Willy Wonka offers the whole chocolate factory to Charlie, and offers for his whole
family to live in the factory. They crash through the Bucket’s roof and push
grandparents and parents into the elevator…even though they say they would rather
die in their beds.

Stammered
Fainted

Plot Elements & Chart