Charlie Bucket is a “Final Girl” and We’re All Gonna Die

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is 1 of Roald Dahl’s classics, particularly erstwhile you realise it is simply a fearfulness story. No, no, no. You cannot bribe maine with cocoa to alteration my mind. I emotion it, but it should decidedly travel with a warning, from Oompa Loompas to generational trauma and outright kid maltreatment passim the tour.

If you’ve seen the movie adaptations, you whitethorn person picked up connected the vibe. Gene Wilder, arsenic the archetypal Willy Wonka, knew what was going on. And Tim Burton’s remake successful 2005 was simply a ghostly apparition of the root material. The impervious is smudged each implicit the cocoa wrapper. The information remains: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is simply a fearfulness story. However, nary of this is needfully a atrocious thing. Dahl ever meant for his iconic communicative to beryllium a small dark. And to beryllium fair: It’s not adjacent the darkest of the bunch. 

For involvement of brevity, let’s presume you cognize who Charlie Bucket is – the protagonist and mediocre lad successful Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If you request a speedy refresher, cheque retired this nonfiction by chap Book Rioter Alison, listing The Best Roald Dahl Books to Get You Started (spoiler: Alison lists Charlie arsenic fig 2).

Why is Charlie Bucket a “Final Girl”? 

Charlie Bucket is perfectly a “Final Girl”. You know: the 1 who confronts the villain (i.e. Willy Wonka) and yet wins the prize astatine the extremity (i.e. survives). Charlie besides has implicit motivation superiority since helium is mediocre and yet to beryllium corrupted by each the consumerism demons attached to the different children. 

For Charlie’s quality to enactment arsenic a Final Girl, helium needs to beryllium likable oregon relatable with immoderate mediocre decision-making skills. To beryllium fair, Dahl wrote Charlie to beryllium precise likable; however, erstwhile you instrumentality a look astatine the remainder of the Golden Ticket winners, it’s not precisely a precocious benchmark to reach. The infinitesimal Veruca Salt opens her mouth, astir readers are already hoping for immoderate balancing of the scales. 

The word Final Girl was primitively coined successful Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender successful the Modern Horror Film by Carol J Clover. It deed cult-trope presumption from slasher films during the 1970s and 1980s, treading precise adjacent to overlap with “Mary Sue” characters. Over the years, the word Final Girl has evolved to see immoderate greater constituent of quality oregon intelligence spot that drives our Final Girl to past supra the rest.

Oh wait, there’s the Mary Sue overlap. 

But is simply a Final Girl quality capable to marque Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a fearfulness story? No, that would beryllium excessively easy. 

Dahl Loved Horror Stories

On its own, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory comfortably sits connected the shelves successful the Children’s Book Section. It has each the elements of a large caller for kids, including young relatable characters, a fantastical adventure, and immoderate large situation allowing the bully kids to win. For Roald Dahl, it wasn’t ever that clear-cut. 

Dahl’s penning has ever been for some children and adults, with a clever layering of awareness. I ever felt similar Dahl’s stories were a travel we took unneurotic successful immoderate elaborate storytelling; adjacent with his twists and turns, we (the reader) cognize what helium is up to, but helium is compelled to archer america the communicative anyway. When you revisit Charlie as an adult, you tin spot that the top anticipation is not successful waiting for Charlie’s large prize astatine the end. The anticipation is successful the small steps towards retribution for the horrible children.

Dahl knows we privation them to get their conscionable deserts. Does that marque america horrible radical ourselves? Or simply readers of a truly bully fearfulness story? The suspense with each misadventure is simply a communal diagnostic passim the fearfulness genre. It’s close there, mixed successful with fear, enigma and the astir almighty of all: Imagination. 

But did Dahl mean for it to beryllium a fearfulness story?

The publication we work contiguous is not the archetypal communicative intended by Roald Dahl. As precocious arsenic 2014, unused chapters had resurfaced, shining caller airy connected this puerility favourite. Initially, 9 (9) Golden Tickets were distributed with further rooms and punishments. One of the chapters, titled “Spotty Powder”, aboriginal featured successful the children’s fearfulness anthology Scary! Stories That Will Make You Scream edited by Peter Haining successful 1998. 

The section rubric refers to the candy, Spotty Powder. It looks and tastes similar sweetener but leaves agleam reddish pox-like spots connected the look and cervix for a fewer hours. It was suggested kids could usage this to debar school. The related characters, Miranda Piker and her schoolmaster father, attempted to sabotage the instrumentality to forestall its release. Despite Mrs Piker proceeding their screams, Wonka tells them it is lone laughter, but their destiny is ne'er revealed. Once again, each the hallmarks of a bully fearfulness story. 

However, you could reason this arsenic being Dahl’s regular penning style. Dahl often included references to his Norwegian practice and peculiarly to the galore Norwegian fairytales helium grew up with. In examination with your Disney classics, Norwegian fairytales thin towards darker elements, filled with gripping narratives and breathtaking challenges. Traditionally, Scandinavian authors instrumentality a child’s satellite seriously, and their stories are often built connected morality alternatively than ‘happily-ever-after’. It’s not antithetic for bestselling Scandinavian big authors to constitute books for children arsenic well. Roald Dahl is 1 amongst many: Jo Nesbø, Unni Lindell, and Aina Basso, to sanction a few. 

Are the children successful Charlie and the Chocolate Factory perpetually facing imaginable decease astatine each turn? Absolutely. But Dahl always writes similar this. To beryllium fair, if Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is simply a fearfulness story, it’s not the lone 1 successful the catalogue. The Witches is perfectly terrifying with its grotesque descriptions and the main quality staying a rodent forever. And don’t hide The BFG with hideous giants regularly eating “human beans”.

What makes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory basal retired is the threat of danger, astir of it conveyed by suggestion. The Oompa Loompas look astir anxious to stock each of the gruesome details of what COULD hap to these horrible children due to the fact that a cautionary communicative is often much effectual than the existent thing. The lone quality is however Dahl depicts this successful his writing. The proposition is capable to fulfill children readers. If Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is not a fearfulness story, past you person to admit it is astatine slightest a gateway for children into the genre. 

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has each the elements of a fearfulness story, including its Final Girl. It is the cleanable stepping chromatic to much Dahl horror, specified arsenic The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. It features 7 abbreviated stories (thus the title), each of them recognisable arsenic Dahl-esque successful their penning but thing similar his much celebrated children’s novels. It includes the astir horror-filled abbreviated communicative I person ever read, “The Swan”. Warning: includes harm to animals and bullying of young children.

And if this isn’t the weirdest instrumentality mentation for you, past cheque retired fellow Book Rioter Grace’s treatment connected Snowpiercer and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.