An extremely exhaustive look at symbolism in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

The day arrives and the ticket holders gather at the factory to be allowed inside. Here we finally meet the legendary Willy Wonka, who the assembled crowd is stunned to see appears to be nothing more than a frail and ordinary man – “He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” We also meet the other ticket holders, who we quickly see represent some of the Deadly Sins – vanity, gluttony, greed, and sloth.

Wonka ushers the ticket holders into the factory. Given what we are soon to learn about what the factory represents, it is safe to say that at this point the ticket holders are supposed to be in the limbo where people exist before they are born. The featureless walls serve to reinforce this. Here the first thing the group must do is sign a contract. This contract is not optional – if they don’t sign it, they can’t go in. We learn later that this contract contains a laundry list of rules which, if even a single one is broken (and the way the contract is written ensures that the signers can’t even read them to know what they are and aren’t supposed to be doing), prevents the signer from receiving the reward at the end. In much the same way, in the Biblical worldview, we are all bound to a contract before we are ever born. If we break any of God’s laws during our lives, we stain ourselves with sin and are barred from receiving His reward (which of course is where grace and redemption come in, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).

Contracts all signed, Wonka opens a door and allows the group into the factory proper. They find themselves in a garden made entirely of candy. Wonka tells them that everything they see is edible and that they can eat whatever they want, except for the chocolate river – they are not supposed to touch that (just like the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil). As they explore the garden, Wonka sings how they have entered “a world of pure imagination,” which is also “the world of my creation.” As God, creation does indeed exist entirely within His imagination. “If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it,” he further sings, underlining the fact that this garden represents the earthly Paradise where Man was originally placed immediately after the Creation. But, just like Adam and Eve before them, the ticket holders (well, Augustus Gloop specifically) spoil their stay in the garden by breaking the one rule they were given and drinking from the chocolate river. In response Wonka tells them they must leave the garden and calls out the Oompa Loompas, who in the movie stand in for angels. They moralize in song as they head off to deal with Gloop, who has fallen into the river and been sucked into the drainage system. Wonka implies that a terrible fate may await the boy (which, curiously, he does not seem to be very concerned about) as he leads the remaining members of the group to a boat which will take them to the next part of the factory.

The boat ride turns out to be fairly terrifying. This is because it represents the Fall – Man is now stained by Adam’s original sin and thus under penalty for breaching the contract with God. As the boat hurtles through some frightening imagery, Wonka sings a song which includes the words, “Are the fires of Hell a-glowing? Is the grisly Reaper mowing?” To both of which the answer is of course “Yes,” as Man is now subject to both Death and Hell as a consequence of sin.

The boat ride at last complete, the group moves on to the Inventing Room, where they are all given an Everlasting Gobstopper (i.e., a soul), which Wonka describes as his “most wonderful creation.” From this point the movie now passes through several vignettes which all have the same basic outline:

1. Wonka shows the group a wondrous thing which he has created but warns them that it is dangerous;
2. The thing nonetheless tempts one member of the group according to which of the Deadly Sins they represent, who decide to ignore Wonka’s warning and try the thing anyway;
3. They suffer the consequences of their actions as Wonka warned them they would, and it is implied that they may or may not suffer a terrible fate as a result;
4. The Oompa Loompas come out to sing a moralizing song regarding what just happened.

In this manner the group is steadily whittled down until at last only Charlie and Grandpa Joe remain. But even they show themselves to be subject to temptation, as they take an opportunity when Wonka’s back is turned to steal a sip of Fizzy Lifting Drink. The experience the drink offers them is exhilarating, and could easily be interpreted as a standard 70’s drug reference (after all, the drink literally “gets them high,”), but in the subtext it represents more generally the pleasure one finds from indulging in sin rather than following the laws of God. However, their enjoyment is fleeting as they realize that the pleasurable floating experience offered by the drink contains the seeds of its own undoing – the room in which the drink is stored has a huge exhaust fan in the ceiling which they are in danger of being pulled into. Only by expelling the gases created by the drink are they able to safely return to the ground. The difference here between Charlie and the other children is that Charlie was able to realize the danger he was in and took steps on his own to return to the right path, whereas all the others ignored very clear warnings and proceeded to do wrong anyway. Charlie and Grandpa Joe leave the Fizzy Lifting Drink room and rejoin what’s left of the group, no one apparently the wiser to their transgression (although we will soon learn that Wonka, like God, is apparently omniscient).

quote:

---

I thought it was based on a book

---

Duh, the Bible! I mean, did you even read my posts?

In seriousness, Roald Dahl, who wrote the book, hated the 1971 movie and completely disavowed himself from it.

Tulane. Is that you?

I can’t believe that I actually read all of that. That’s a seriously good breakdown that makes a ton of sense. It seems so obvious, like I had worked out all of the pieces in my head, but seeing them all put together like that really makes for a fascinating case study.

I enjoyed this.

quote:

---

Now, for most of the movie Charlie and Grandpa Joe have displayed complete faith in the goodness of Wonka. However, as their journey has progressed we have seen that faith begin to waver. The factory, which they had assumed would be a wonderful and happy place, has turned out to be filled with dangers, and Wonka himself has turned out to be something of a pompous arse who has alternated between treating his guests with casual disinterest at best and callous disregard at worst. Charlie and Grandpa Joe ask Wonka what will happen to the other members of the group, and he assures them that they will be returned to normal. He then tells Charlie and Grandpa Joe that the tour is complete, bids them an abrupt goodbye, and heads into his office without giving Charlie the promised lifetime supply of chocolate. Charlie and Grandpa Joe follow him in to ask about the reward. Wonka angrily tells them that because Charlie breached the contract by taking the Fizzy Lifting Drink he will receive nothing, and again tells them to leave. At this point Grandpa Joe loses faith completely, accuses Wonka of being heartless and cruel, and encourages Charlie to give his Everlasting Gobstopper to Slugworth in revenge. Charlie, of course, after thinking it over, Does The Right Thing and returns his Everlasting Gobstopper to Wonka. At this Wonka’s entire demeanor changes. He glowingly congratulates Charlie for passing the test he had set him, and reveals that Slugworth is actually one of his employees (just as Satan is described at a few places in the Bible as working for God). The whole experience had been intended to determine which of the ticket holders, if any, were worthy of receiving the real reward, which Wonka now reveals – he is going to give Charlie his factory. Wonka, Charlie, and Grandpa Joe enter the Great Glass Elevator, which propels them into the sky as the movie ends. Contained within these last few minutes is the true message of the movie. The journey through the factory has mirrored Man’s journey through life. Just like the world, the factory may have seemed wonderful and perfect at first glance, but in reality it was not always a very nice place to be. It was full of things which were dangerous and yet made in such a way as to be almost irresistible to the group members. Wonka, meanwhile, clearly had the power to prevent the group from gaining access to or being hurt by these things, and yet seemed absolutely unconcerned about what might happen to them as a result of his creations. In fact he did not seem much interested in the group members at all. God’s attitude towards His creation often seems similar to us. Why does He allow bad things to happen? Why does there have to be pain and suffering? He has the power to prevent all of that – why doesn’t He? He, too, can sometimes seem to be a pompous arse who demands our worship yet regards Mankind with casual disinterest at best and callous disregard at worst. In fact He seems to have put Man in an untenable situation by binding him to follow a laundry list of rules and “Thou shalt nots,” and then creating a world in which the things that break those rules are in most cases irresistibly tantalizing and pleasurable. Does He want Man to fail? The answer, as it turns out, is “Yes, yes He does.” If Charlie had not broken any rules on his trip through the factory, then Wonka would have been bound to give him his lifetime supply of chocolate, and there would have been no real reason for Charlie to consider giving Slugworth the Everlasting Gobstopper. Charlie’s own inherent goodness would have been enough for him to earn Wonka’s reward without any real effort or sacrifice on his part – and that was exactly what Wonka did not want. He wanted Charlie to be put in a position where his faith in Wonka would be severely tested. Grandpa Joe’s reaction at the end is a perfectly understandable one: you’ve taken us on this journey that appears to have had no point while putting us in danger and allowing others to be hurt in the process, and now at the end you’re telling us that because we did one thing wrong you are releasing yourself from any obligation towards us and kicking us out? Of course we are giving the Gobstopper to Slugworth! You clearly care nothing for us, so why should we not do whatever we can to undermine you? Charlie, though, despite everything he has gone through, keeps his faith in Wonka. His journey through the factory (life) complete, Charlie entrusts the Gobstopper (his soul) to Wonka (God), and as a result Wonka judges him worthy not just of receiving the reward he was promised, but of an even greater reward than Charlie could possibly have imagined. The most important thing to understand here is that Charlie was still in breach of contract and did not actually deserve to receive anything. Wonka simply decided, out of his own benevolence (because we see now that he really did love them all along), to void the contract and give Charlie the reward anyway. There’s that “grace and redemption” thing we mentioned earlier. So there it is. A movie which on the surface seems to be a whimsical kids’ story about a madman who tortures children through candy-oriented means actually turns out to be a thoughtful look at Man’s predicament of being a self-aware being in a sometimes uncaring and unpleasant universe, and his relationship with the God who placed him there. The next time life has you down and you question why a perfect God would have put you in an imperfect world, just remember that He is testing you to see whether you will keep faith and return your Everlasting Gobstopper to Him just before you climb on board that Great Glass Elevator to the sky.

---

Damn dude

Well done

I enjoyed the post.

Charlie purchases the candy bar that has a golden ticket with money that he found on the street.

You should listen to the 1974 Genesis four sided concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Lots of symbolism. The lamb, Brother John, the main character Rael (Israel).

Different with a 1960s and ‘70s mythology spiritual exploration sense to them. Even some marijuana use.

The last line of the album is, “It’s only knock and know all, but I like it.”

Second to last song about Rael trying to save Brother John who has fallen in a river. Rael decides to take the plunge an jump. He grabs onto a “rock” and reaches out for John. When he looks at John’s face he sees his own. It’s not John who is saved, but Rael.

Moving down the water
John is drifting out of sight
It's only at the turning point
That you find out how you fight

In the cold, feel the cold
All around
And the rush of crashing water
Surrounds me with its sound

Striking out to reach you
I can't get through to the other side
When you're racing in the rapids
There's only one way, that's to ride

Taken down, taken down by the undertow
I'm spiraled down the river bed, my fire is burning low
Catching hold of a rock that's firm, I'm waiting for John to be carried past
We hold together, hold together and shoot the rapids fast

And when the waters slow down, the dark and the deep
Have no one, no one, no one, no one, no one left to keep
Hang on John, we're out of this at last
Something's changed, that's not your face, it's mine
It’s mine!

Really good album and endorsed by both Charlie Bucket and Willy Wonka.

It was the sixth album by a group of 24 year olds