In children’s author Roald Dahl’s work, childhood is an alienating and threatening time. In The Witches, an orphaned boy encounters a group of child-eating witches and must infiltrate their yearly convention at his own risk. In James and the Giant Peach, the young protagonist escapes his abusive aunts by flying off on a peach, encountering frightening creatures that test his mettle. Matilda, another beloved Dahl character, has similarly neglectful parents and must harness her magic within to find a better situation.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its film adaptation, WILLY WONKA, is rarely categorized in the same vein as these films. Gene Wilder’s magnetic performance makes it so people remember the film as a light-hearted romp. But Dahl’s vision of a chocolate factory is not all whimsy, and even the changes in story, including a shift from an impoverished child protagonist to a chocolate tycoon, can’t cover over the film’s darker themes.
In one of the films most iconic scenes, Wonka sings:
“There’s no earthly way of knowing/ Which direction we are going!/ There’s no knowing where we’re rowing/ Or which way the river’s flowing! […] Not a speck of light is showing/ So the danger must be growing/ Are the fires of Hell a-glowing?/ Is the grisly Reaper mowing?/ Yes!…”
Wonka’s world of imagination is not limited to pleasant visions; it also allows nightmares to come to life. This scene along with several others that show children (albeit, bratty ones) punished for their lack of self-control, subtly underscores how Wonka’s world is not an egalitarian free-for-all. Wonka, more often than not, makes his visitors uncomfortable with his eccentricities and moral ambiguity.
— Diana Martinez, Film Streams Education Director
