Presenting...

Yao, LingYun. "Material Girl in a Material World: Capitalism and Consumerism in Roald Dahl". [database online] (Singapore: National University of Singapore), April 2006-[cited on ____]; available from http://charlieandmatilda.blogspot.com

Haha!

Is this cool or what?

Acknowledgement

This essay would not be possible without:

Pheng who lent me her treasured collection of Dahl's books, risking broken spines and crumpled pages.

YY who lent me her sister's books, risking broken bones and crumpled faces.

Badass who was misled into copy-editing a "section".

Dr. Susan Ang who has been:
most encouraging and rebuilding my confidence in essay writing,
most patient in dealing with my last-minuteness,
most accommodating when arranging for consultations,
most forgiving of misdemeanor, and
most exemplary an example of straight talking.

and most importantly, God...
who gave me fingers to type and brains to think.
who has brought me through four years of University life when at first I thought I could never make it through Secondary school.
who brought people, some nice, and other perplexing into my life.

Preface

So this is it. The paper that I've been toiling over.

I'm putting this up as I submitted it, sketchy writing, typos and all... It is not the best piece of work, neither is it an A++ masterpiece. So why on earth am I putting it up for public scrutiny?

I'm putting it up as a milestone. A monument or site of memory to the fact that I did manage to write over 6000 words. A feat to me, considering how I much struggle with 2k assignments.

Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are two stories which have been integrated into the cultural memory of our generation. You might have traded your copy of one text for another, you could have read them on the school bus, in the shade of the school porch while waiting for assembly to begin, or like me, hidden the books under a textbook during class time.

Those were the days...

Therefore, as much as this is a memory I am preserving for private reminisce, I'm also putting this up because I had fun conceptualizing the ideas and I'm hoping that you'll have fun reading them too.

Introduction

On Choice of Author
Hunt observed that literary greats such as “Hofland, Edgeworth, Day and Barbauld—whose books, it may be argued, were once children’s literature though have now ceased to be so” (22). Changes in linguistic conventions or alterations in the lifestyles might have caused the plots and themes of earlier works to be inaccessible or irrelevant to contemporary children. Regardless the reasons, most pertinent to the ensuing discussion, Hunt’s observation suggest a certain degree of fluidity in the canon of contemporary children’s literature. In such a context, good representatives of contemporary children’s literature would be books which appeal to children. Using the popularity of his literary works as a gauge, Roald Dahl’s texts have been chosen as examples of children’s literature which resemble the world in which the readers are situated, in order that the discussion of social issues in children’s literature could be facilitated.

On Choice of Primary Material

This exposition will focus on Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as primary materials. Where possible and pertinent, the essay will refer to the other narratives by Dahl. Although Dahl wrote quite a handful of children’s books, my discussion will be primarily based on the above mentioned texts, firstly because as representatives of Dahl’s works, these narratives are copious in allegorical materials, and therefore ample in facilitating an introductory foray of a Marxist reading of Dahl’s works.

Thesis of Paper

As an author with cultural relevance, Dahl’s narratives comment on social issues which are in accordance with societies beyond the story world. Dahl’s stories, though fantastic in nature, exhibit an insidious overtone of how society’s or more often, adults’ obsession with the material affects the growing process of children. Like other authors, Dahl’s perspective of society, in this case, the attributes of capitalist society, is framed as didactic in his stories. Through the application of Marxist lens on plot, characters and the motif of food and consumption, this paper endeavors to illustrate how capitalistic and consumerist norms of society are reflected in the narrative worlds. As conclusion, this paper will also attempt to suggest possible interpretations to reconcile the didactical aspects of the narrative with the social issues presented within the text.

Defining Capitalism and Consumerism

Scholars have traced the beginnings of modernity to the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century that brought about urbanization, developments in science and technology and according to Dickson, a “financial revolution”. Noted philosopher and economist Adam Smith mentions that:

"Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most
advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own
advantage [italics mine], indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in
view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads
him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society.” (The
Wealth of Nations)

Smith’s theory of the laissez faire assumes that the self-motivation of men would eventually result in benefits to the society as a whole. However, as men are motivated by self-interest, free economy brought about consequences of “class conflicts, indifference, separation, exploitation of people in free market” (Goh).

With the self-interest of capitalism comes a new paradigm in the lifestyle and culture of society that is marked by consumerism. Veblen, who coined the term “conspicuous consumption” states that the “obvious implication that in order to effectually mend the consumer's good fame it must be an expenditure of superfluities” (Theory of the Leisure Class). His observation highlights the excessive nature that necessarily accompanies consumerism.

Capitalism is a multifaceted and complex social phenomenon. However, it is clear that the tenets of the two intertwined economic and social phenomenal involves an excessiveness of self-motivated desires. The summation of the definitions provided by Smith and Veblen, present an accessible starting point for the consideration of consumerism in Matilda.

Matilda

The Initiation to Consumption

Social linguists work on a basis that language as a system interacts with society and reflects the ideologies of the society in which it inhabits. Derrida mentions this in passing when discussing speech and writing as parts which are encapsulated by the notion of a larger “presence”. Extending this school of thought, books or publications as the concretized form of language can be considered as emblems of, or conduits to the culture of the world beyond the text. With this, the symbolic consideration of books Matilda reads would be illuminating with regard to her immediate environment.

Mrs Wormwood’s cookbook as a symbol works on two levels. The cookbook as a metonym of its owner first exemplifies the highly material nature of the world that Matilda inhabits.

In recurring episodes in the story, Mrs Wormwood is depicted as “a large platinum-blonde woman (who) gaz[es] rapturously at the TV screen” (94). As a soap-opera addict, Mrs. Wormwood’s visual consumption of the soap operas allows us to read her as a projection of unthinking, excessive consumerism. Her “heavy make-up and…unfortunate bulging figure(s) where the flesh appears to be strapped in all around the body to prevent it from falling out” is quite clearly the result of her attempt to emulate the characters in the program (27). Veblen describes “conspicuous consumerism” as an interaction between the working and leisure classes. According to him, the working classes’s desire to emulate the leisure class motivates their consumerist desire.

Mrs. Wormwood’s personification of the excesses of consumerism causes her to ape what is presented on the screen. At the same time, as she consumes the ideologies and products advertised on television programs she participates only in consumerist leisure activities. Cumulatively, the very appearance of her body, her gaudy make-up and fatness becomes emblematic of a mindless consumer of the capitalistic lifestyle.

Extending this strand of thought, the specificity of the book that Matilda first reads—“Easy Cooking”: cookbook works at a metaphorical level wherein the literal notion of consumption is merged with the ideological concept of capitalist consumption. The cookbook as a metonym of Mrs. Wormwood is represents her consumerist values. In her act of reading, Matilda consumes not just the words on the page but is also absorbed into a textual world that is essentially about consumption. Accordingly, it was only after “she had read [Easy Cooking] from cover to cover and had learnt all the recipes by heart, (that) she decided she wanted something more interesting” (11). Therefore, more than initiating Matilda to the need to consume, the cookbook introduces Matilda to economic notions of ‘unlimited wants’. For whilst Matilda ‘devours’ the contents of the cookbook, the diet of TV dinners the family lives on is a far cry from the meals presented by the book. In being dissatisfied with Easy Cooking, Matilda is in fact frustrated by her desire to fulfill intellectual and gastronomical wants, a throwback to early economists’ theories of ‘unlimited desires’.

In summation, Mrs. Wormwood’s cookbook can thus be seen not just as a symbol of consumerism but the recipe, emblematic of the combination of factors that results in Matilda being subsumed by consumerism.

Intertextual references to Great Expectations

Even as Matilda forays into the public realm of the library and is introduced to “books (which) transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives” (21), her indoctrination by consumerist ideology continues “in the wonderful adventures of Pip and old Miss Havisham and her cobwebbed house and by the spell of magic that Dickens the great story-teller had woven with his words.” (16) Dickens of course, published Great Expectations in installments from 1860-1861. As mentioned in the introduction, the mid nineteenth century was the peak of the development of modern capitalist society. As a side point, Willy Wonka with his “black top hat, tail coat and fine gold-topped walking cane” physically resembles the Victorian gentleman (80). Great Expectations as a Victorian text is largely about the acquisition of great expectations or wealth, a preoccupation with the people of those times. As Kristeva says, “every text is from the outset under the jurisdiction of other discourses which impose a universe on it”. Recalling that language and texts reveal the conditions of society, the significance of Dahl’s reference to Dickens is in the imposition of Great Expectation’s universe unto Dahl’s narrative world. Pip’s Bildungsroman mirrors Matilda’s own economically and politically centered maturation.

Therefore, the intertextual reference to the earlier text reflects an authorial intention or awareness, of the political balance in the world today that is like the nineteenth century, closely associated with wealth. As will be seen later, growing up in Matilda is largely associated with power and money.

Matilda’s relationship with mindless consumerism is complex. On one hand, the household she lives in is not simply a stereotypical portrayal of people “so wrapped up in their own silly little lives” but one in which sons “inherit [their] father’s love of crookery” [sic]. (10, 24) The word “crookery” as a pun on ‘cookery’ reiterates the family’s obsession with consumption. As part of this household and therefore an heir to the culture of the family, Matilda is part of a capitalist consumerist culture.

With this in mind, Matilda’s reaction to her father’s acquisition of wealth is not at an ideological level but at a moral level. As Mr Wormwood points out, “the food in this house…is bought with the profits.” (25). With respect to Dickens, Matilda’s reaction to her father’s profits is similar to Pip’s reaction to Magwitch.

“It’s dirty money,” Matilda said. “I hate it.” (25).

Being subsumed under the culture of consumption, like Pip, Matilda’s abhorrence is not against the money, it is directed to the source of the money.

Power and Economics with Miss Honey

Conventionally, stories about victimized children feature adults coming to the rescue. In Matilda, it is the child’s supernatural powers which result in the economic liberation of the adult. Interestingly, the political balance in the story is aligned with economic power.

The following section will illustrate how impoverishment is closely associated with subjugation. Although to the child, Miss Honey is the Madonna figure, she remains quite powerless in her negotiations with Miss Trunchbull and the Wormwoods. The narrative suggests that her powerlessness is associated with her economic helplessness. As a child, her diabolical aunt, Miss Trunchbull had robbed her of her inheritance. As a result, she “became so completely cowed and dominated by this monster of an aunt” to the extent that “by the time [she] was ten, [she] had become her slave” (199). The word ‘slave’ is then indicative of her state of absolute disempowerment.

The relationship between money and liberation is further elaborated in Miss Honey’s first, minor victory from her enslavement. Miss Honey’s liberation from the domestic sphere was only possible after she gained employment. As Matilda astutely puts it, her “salary was [her] only chance of freedom” (201). However, Miss Honey remains under the jurisdiction of Miss Trunchbull within the public sphere. This is manifested through Miss Honey’s “salary (being) paid directly into (Miss Trunchbull’s) bank” (201). Succinctly, Miss Honey’s meagre wealth only buys her a fraction of power from her aunt.

Miss Trunchbull’s dominance over Miss Honey is possibly a matter of physical size, age or institutionalized authority. When we factor Matilda’s supernatural power into this study of power relation, Dahl’s construction of power and economics becomes clearer. In terms of build, age or her position in the school, Matilda is clearly overshadowed by Miss Trunchbull. Miss Trunchbull’s threat to “remove [her] belt and let [Matilda] have it with the end that has the buckle” allows one to see how truth and intelligent arguments are also powerless against Miss Trunchbull (164). By this process of elimination, it is quite clear then, that it is Matilda’s power is the crux that contributes to the disabling of Miss Trunchbull’s regime. The importance of power is underscored here.

With the literal collapse of Miss Trunchbull, the “prostrate giant” brings about a restoration of Miss Honey’s finances—“the property and the money could (then) be transferred into [Miss Honey’s] name” (228). In the above two examples, we see that whether for personal or altruistic purposes, power is essential in the wrestling for monetary gain.

In my above analysis, I have shown how wealth legitimizes power and how the objective of power is to procure wealth. The dualistic association between wealth and power is common to Marxist schools of thought. It is important to note that the child-reader has been, like Matilda, initiated into this mode of approaching power relations even whilst they are reading supposedly light literature. As I will also attempt to show via other Dahl’s stories, even though perceived as simple to adult critics, is embedded with concerns and frameworks which are accurate representations of the real world.

Economic power and Bildungsroman

If Pip is the inter-textual reference to Matilda, then Miss Honey should be considered the intra-textual reference. With her “lovely pale oval madonna face” and the “curious warmth that was almost tangible [shining] out of Miss Honey’s face”, Miss Honey is the adult Madonna figure whom Matilda admires.

Miss Honey as a Madonna figure is not simply a token stereotypical positive adult figure for Matilda and young readers to emulate. Dahl’s Matilda reverses the Cinderella-Fairy godmother relationship that we would expect. Miss Honey is divine because of her charismatic personality. The problem Dahl poses is that her divinity is not empowering. Whilst it is true that the narrative ends with Matilda being freed from her tyrannical parents and beginning a new, nurtured life with Miss Honey. I would like to suggest that this shift in plot is possible not because of Miss Honey’s personality but because of the economic maturation that Matilda helps Miss Honey through.

Matilda presents two instances of Bildungsroman at work. The growth and maturation of the child protagonist is obvious, however, more subtly, the empowerment of Miss Honey is a Bildungsroman as well. On one level, with Miss Trunchbull’s departure, the acquisition of her inheritance and the ability to exert her individualism could be seen as the finale of Miss Honey’s own growth. However, considering the climax or turning point of the story reveals another dimension of Miss Honey’s maturation—the power relationship between Miss Honey and Matilda.

Miss Honey and Matilda’s relationship begins with a conventional teacher-student relationship. The former is astonished by the child’s intellect and the later admires the kind and pretty teacher. Initially,”the prospect of coaching a child as bright as (Matilda) appealed enormously to (Miss Honey’s) professional instinct as a teacher” (92). Although bearing nuances of self-gratification, this professional, almost exploitative, relationship develops into a more nurturing bond where “Miss Honey had been thinking a great deal about this child and wondering how she could help her” (171). The politics of this relationship, based on institutionalized positions, is a temporary one. The revelation of Miss Honey’s poverty and the subsequent development of Matilda’s supernatural powers would impact this dialectic.

“On the spur of the moment, Matilda decided that the one person she would like to confide [italics mine] in was Miss Honey”, notably, ‘confide’ has connotations of sharing secrets with an equal (170). With her new empowerment, Matilda begins to look at Miss Honey as less of an authoritative figure but as more of a peer. This political shift is mutual as after Matilda confessed her secret, “Miss Honey continued to look steadily at Matilda…and Matilda looked back at her just as steadily” (172). Lacan suggests that the”‘ideal ego’ is the ideal of perfection that the ego strives to emulate; it first affected the subject when he saw himself in a mirror…” (Felluga). As the initiator of the gaze, Miss Honey is positioned as the subject who sees Matilda as the ‘ideal ego’. Granted, according to Lacan’s theory, it is the child who acquires the notion of the ‘ideal ego’, but I would argue that at this stage of the story, Miss Honey, penniless and powerless is more of a child than Matilda who is from an opulent, though boorish, family and is endowed with supernatural powers. When ”Miss Honey… gaz[es] at the child in absolute wonderment, as though she were The Creation, The Beginning of the World, The First Morning”, Lacan’s argument is crystallized in Miss Honey’s almost worshipful attitude towards Matilda (176).

In the previous section, we have examined the complex but complementary relationship between economics and politics. With the eradication of Miss Trunchbull, Miss Honey steps into her rightful adult position, simultaneously ‘en-riched’ and empowered. Interestingly, with the restoration of the judicial order, Matilda loses her supernatural power. In Dahl’s presentation of the structured order, the implicit suggestion seems to consign children as subordinates to adults. Matilda’s process of normalization betrays an authorial intent to put her proper position, authorized by institutions. After Miss Honey’s fiscal maturation, “the two of them talked to each other more or less as equals” (231). In contrast to Miss Honey’s earlier reverence towards Matilda, the reversal of Miss Honey’s fortunes returns the duo’s relationship to the point before the revelation of Matilda’s supernatural power.

The brief nature of the conclusion disallows a more detailed analysis of the power relationship between Matilda and Miss Honey. But the events that lead to Matilda becoming financially provided for, a charge under Miss Honey, suggest a rather conservative, conventional, reinstitution of the position of a child. The irony of the situation is in Miss Honey’s eventual objectification of Matilda. Following the equalization of their relationship, Matilda risks permanent separation when her parents flee for Spain. In attempting to secure the custody of Matilda, Miss Honey bargains for Matilda in monetary terms, offering to “pay for everything. (So that) She wouldn’t cost (the Wormwoods) a penny” (239). In terms of character interaction, using monetary terms to speak at the level of the consumerism-absorbed Wormwoods makes logical sense. But together with this, the larger point is that the once the Wormwoods ‘sell’ Matilda to Miss Honey and Miss Honey, repositioned as legal guardian who is bestowed power, the story ends with a tableau that contrasts Miss Honey to the unnamed “tiny girl” (240). Though this is not an indication that Miss Honey will treate Matilda like how Mr. Wormwood treats his daughter; But clearly, the nature of the politics between the two has changed since the time when Matilda was in a more powerful position.

Examining the development of the Bildungsroman in Matilda reiterates my earlier suggestion of the intertwined nature between power and economics. Additionally, financial power is suggested to be the goal of the maturation process. The conclusion puts forward the notion that power should belong only to institutionalised and matured figures of authority. In such an understanding of power and maturation, to the child-reader who is also going through his/her own Bildungsroman, sees wealth and power as gauges to having ‘arrived’. The narrative then echoes values of the capitalistic world that the adult-author is a part of.



In this analysis of Matilda, Dahl’s critique of rampant consumerism and his attitude towards the unethical acquisition of money has been highlighted. However Dahl’s inevitable inclination towards certain aspects of capitalism is also illuminated through our engagement of the narrative world. As I have shown in with respect to the cookbook in Matilda, the metaphor of food and eating is exceptionally useful when considering the manifestation of consumerism in Dahl’s works. To continue, this paper will attempt to illuminate the significance of the subject matter of Charlie and the Chocolate Factor—chocolate.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory...

Chocolate

The cacao bean or chocolate is a product native to Latin America. Introduced to Europe by the Spanish and “remain[ing] an exclusively Spanish phenomenon for the next hundred years” during which chocolate was considered a “fashionable beverage” and “a kind of status symbol” (Wolfgang, 85-91). The historical origin of chocolate is important as it foreshadows the symbolism of chocolate in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

As a cash crop, the chocolate generated income for the Spanish colonizers. It is important to realize that chocolate still retains this function in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This is seen from Wonka’s protectionist attitude towards his chocolate factory. Facing the problem of industrial espionage, Wonka takes drastic measures, retrenching all off his workers to eliminate the spies. This decision can be attributed to Wonka’s economic self-preservation. Being in the business of selling chocolate, the most direct consequence of competition is a loss of market shares, which translate to a decrease in profit. Chocolate production may be creatively rewarding to Wonka but his protective measure draws our attention to the importance of revenue generation in this process.

Extending the historical analogy, Willy Wonka as the trader of chocolate, assumes the role of the colonial master. His relationship with his colonized, the Oompa Loompas will be discussed later in this exposition. Fundamentally, the chocolate is a symbol of profit-motivated colonialism. As a successful chocolate manufacturer, Willy Wonka’s chocolate bars are sold “to all four corners of the earth” (22). Relating the historical and the metaphorical to the extra-narrative world, the international presence of Willy Wonka’s chocolate bars is comparable to financial and cultural colonialism. In this wave of colonialism, multinational corporations like MacDonald’s are likewise motivated by monetary gains. However, instead of claiming land, the current approach is to colonize retail space around the world. The resulting homogenizing or ‘MacDonaldization’ of native culture co-opts minds instead of lands.

Other layers and nuances of meanings of the chocolate as instrumental in cultural colonialism will surface in later discussions on slavery and the Oompa Loompas.

Chocolate Craving

In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, chocolate is constructed as a desired luxury. On a diet of: “bread and margarine for breakfast, boiled potatoes and cabbage for lunch, and cabbage soup for supper…[though bland], The Buckets, of course, didn’t starve”. Nevertheless, the family “went about from morning till night with a horrible empty feeling in their tummies” (16). Physically, the family could have been hungry for more substantial food. However, instead of longing for nutritious foods i.e. steaks or fish, Charlie longs for chocolate “more than anything else” (ibid). The “horrible empty feeling” might be interpreted as a manifestation of the insatiable quality of capitalistic consumerism. Though bland, the diet of the family is able to sustain them. Economic theories would explain that unexplained emptiness as the result of possessing ‘unlimited wants’. Due to the family’s ‘limited resource’ this unmet want exists as a constant void within the individual. In other words, Charlie’s longing cannot be quantified as a true physical hunger but as a psychological manifestation of his consumerist desire for more.

In contrast to Augustus Gloop’s excessive consumption of chocolate bars and Veruca Salt’s “hundreds and thousands” bars of uneaten chocolate, another interpretation of Charlie’s situation could be that of social inequality (40). For “Little Charlie, the lover of chocolate” chocolate is a luxury that his family could afford “only once a year, on his birthday”. We are told that Charlie goes through “pure torture” “watching other children munching bars of creamy chocolate right in front of him” (16-17). Chocolate as the object of Charlie’s hunger is something that is accessible to other people but not to him because of economic constraints. The contrast between the standard of living of the rich and the poor is not unique to the narrative but a phenomenon common throughout the world where social goods such as education, are luxuries inaccessible to certain impoverished sections of society but abused and wasted by wealthy capitalists. Charlie’s longing, is relatable to Dahl’s young readers. Like Charlie, chocolate is likely a food that Dahl’s young readers would hope to indulge in. The plot is used as a sympathetic device that highlights the problems of social inequality brought about by the unequal distribution of wealth.

This is a distinctively Marxist perspective that envisions continually increasing economic and social gaps between workers and capitalists. Mr. Bucket who works in a factory screwing caps unto toothpaste is a clear representative of an exploited, alienated worker. On the other hand, Mr. Salt who owns a Ford-like factory where “all day long” women sit there “yanking the paper off those bars of chocolate full speed ahead from morning till night” is quite clearly a capitalist (40). Charlie’s eventual victory over the other privileged children and inheriting the factory mirrors the Marxist prophesy that a future generation of workers will one day seize the means of production. It would be too great a generalization to label Dahl as Communist but it would be valid to note that Dahl often attempts to redress social inequalities in his stories.

Danny the Champion of the World

The proletariat’s rebellion is a thematic concern that underscores many of Dahl’s narratives. While the Buckets’ are largely pacifists who do not actively seek to redress their poverty, in her thesis, Yeoh addresses instances in George’s Marvelous Medicines, The Twits and James and the Giant Peach where the oppressors are eradicated through extremely violent means. Turning away from Charlie, the discussion will use Danny the Champion of the World as a further elaboration on the tendency for Dahl’s stories to represent the socio-economically disadvantaged.

The narrative begins with an economic assessment of the protagonist. All that Danny’s father owns in the world was a very small filling station surrounded by fields and woody hills owned by Mr. Hazell, described as “a little island in the middle of the vast ocean of Mr. Hazell’s estate” (49). The spatial image contrasts the poor proletariats with the opulent capitalist. Centered on poaching, the narrative tells the story of how the poor thwarts the vulgar display of the wealth by the nouveau riche. Similar to Robin Hood who exacts justice in Sherwood Forest, Danny’s father exercises his brand of income reallocation by robbing the rich of their pheasants. Dahl recounts how the keepers of the bourgeois deliberately lay “six feet long” traps to “catch people” (72-73). In his attempt to exact his version of justice, Danny’s father risks being shot at and actually breaks his leg in the process. The violence embedded within this version of class struggle is aptly conveyed through the war metaphor of the adventure as “a famous victory” (201).

Like in Matilda, Dahl’s commentary on the politics between classes is not resolved simply. The story ends on an apparently disappointing tone where the pheasants literally fly the coop. However, upon further analysis, the conclusion is in line with the over-arching moral of the story: that “It never pays to eat more than your fair share” (200). The lesson about greed is polarized against the contentment father and son find in each other’s company. The narrative assures that the protagonists’ relationship remains, till the very end, free from excessive consumption. At this point, the ideologies propounded by Dahl appear to conflate. On one hand, the narratives direct our gaze to the ugly and greedy side of consumers. On the other hand, the protagonists of the stories are driven by the same impulse to consume.

From Danny and the Champion of the World, the Marxist notion of class struggle critics the capitalists. However, as capitalism is the default economic system of the present world, Dahl’s protagonists risk being subsumed by consumerism. In the resolution, Dahl ensures that the protagonists’ absorption with consumerism is moderated.

This schizophrenic dimension of Dahl’s social theory is magnified by the enigmatic Willy Wonka. The following discussion on Willy Wonka hopes to illuminate this paradox.

Willy Wonka

As mentioned, Willy Wonka may be seen as the figure of a financial colonizer. Like all creatures of capitalism, Wonka is motivated by self-interest and profit. The launch of the five golden tickets illustrates this point clearly. Explicitly stated in the story, Wonka “decided to invite five children to the factory, [in other that] the one [he] liked best at the end of the day” could be heir to the factory (185). For the purposes of the narrative, Charlie being the most polite and long-suffering child deserves the prize. Yet, in the event that all five children should be eliminated, what Wonka will have launched will be an immensely successful marketing campaign that escalated sales and publicized his brand. Following the discovery of the first golden ticket, “the whole country, indeed, the whole world, seemed suddenly to be caught up in a mad chocolate-buying spree” (38). With the amount of chocolate sold, Wonka obviously earned tremendous profit. Recalling my earlier point that chocolate is a symbol of consumerist desires, by encouraging the excessive consumption of chocolate, Wonka’s capitalist objectives and strategy can be universally observed in most corporate ventures.

The complexity of Wonka lies in his apparent self-awareness of how he is revenue-driven. After Wonka admonishes “disgusting gum”, Mike Teavee astutely asks why Wonka still “makes it in your factory?” (130). Wonka pleads deafness, a selectively recurring disability. Another instance where Wonka pretends not to hear Mike is when Mike challenges Wonka’s explanation of the workings of television broadcasting. From these examples, we see how Wonka takes on an escapist mode whenever he does not have correct answers to questions posed. Mike Teavee’s obsession with the television makes him a metonymy of the media. Wonka’s attitude to Teavee’s questions is comparable to the tendencies of patriarchal authority to ignore and eventually remove representatives of the media when they question the contradictions of capitalist society. This is significant when Wonka escapes with his new found son/heir from the factory. In literally breaking out of the factory, Wonka breaks out of an institutionalized monument of capitalist production. Extending the notion that Wonka escapes from where he has no answers, he emerges from the capitalist system because it does not offer an adequate solution to his other emotional needs. Despite having lived in the factory for years with “no family at all”, Wonka wastes no time in fetching “the rest of the family” (185-186). The urgency of his acquisition of an heir and a family is significant as it highlights the urgency of his emotional hunger. At the same time, a characteristic of consumerism is immediate gratification. With “click, click, click, three times” Wonka summons the Oompa-Loompas who respond “immediately” (101). From a different slant, Dahl’s presentation of Wonka’s need for family as a consumerist desire adds another criteria to the fulfillment of an individual. In the narrative, Wonka is satisfied with the creative aspect of his job, he is wealthy but Dahl is suggesting that even the figure of capitalism needs the company and affection of people to be complete.

This humanistic slant in the portrayal of Wonka was explored in the 2005 movie adaptation of the story. In the movie, Willy Wonka was given an additional layer of psychological depth that explains his eccentricity. Wonka’s distant, authoritarian father as a dentist who forbids the consumption of sweets and chocolates creates psychological scars which are manifested as post-traumatic flashbacks that haunt the adult Wonka. The last scene of the movie shows the bare cottage of the Buckets comfortably situated in candy meadow where the chocolate waterfall is located suggests the integration of the Buckets’ warm with the wealth of Wonka as the ideal solution. Dahl seems to be suggesting that morality and affection that the Buckets exhibit has to be incorporated into the capitalist culture. The sense of an individual’s isolation and inherent loneliness characterizes the capitalist society. Dahl’s solution to this emotional hunger or longing is not through the consumption of material things but to consume or acquire nurturing relationships.

As mentioned in passing in the previous paragraphs, penalizing the spoilt capitalist children and parents and rewarding the proletariat Buckets can be considered an interpretation of Marx’s understanding of the workers’ revolution. Willy Wonka’s timely rescue of the Buckets can be seen as a socialist resolution to their poverty. By allowing the figure of colonialism and capitalism to be the solution to problems caused by these very institutions, the narrative’s utopian reconciliation extends the above reading of the Dahl’s push for greater inclusion in society.

Being absorbed by the capitalist system may be a regressive reading of the Bucket’s economic elevation. I have shown how Charlie has consumerist desires and like the resolution in Matilda, Dahl does not renounce capitalist society, in fact, I would argue that his accurate representations of capitalist and consumerist tropes demonstrates his familiarity with the system. Dahl’s pedagogical intent is simply to present a modification or extension to improve the existing framework.

Oompa-Loompa

"In the version first published, [the Oompa–Loompas were] a tribe of 3,000
amiable black pygmies who have been imported by Mr. Willy Wonka from 'the very
deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had been
before.' (Treglown)

The original description reveals clear associations between slavery and colonial exploitation and the Oompa-Loompas. The Oompa-Loompas’ who “love dancing and music” are “always making up songs” (96). These songs are comparable to the slaves’ songs that contributed to the myth of the happy slave perpetuated by slave owners in nineteenth century America. Frederick Douglass explains that the songs “told a tale of woe which…breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish” (24). Debunking the myth, he says:

“It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they
are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart…”
(24)

Other than being modeled after the myth of the happy slaves, the willingness of the Oompa-Loompas to work for cacao beans is a throwback to a moment in history during the colonization and exploitation of South American, Columbus noted in his journals that he traded items like beads, cloth and shoes for gold with the natives. In this context, the cacao beans paid to the Oompa-Loompas are akin to the beads and fragments of glass the colonizers gave to the natives. Although the Oompa-Loompas moved to Wonka’s factory out of their own free will, but nevertheless as Wonka himself notes, the payment in kind rather than cash costs him very little as he himself uses “billions of cacao beans every week” (95). It would be unfair to term the Oompa-Loompas as slaves, but their situation is reminiscent of capitalist exploitation of third-world labour. Like the Oompa-Loompas, workers from developing countries are willing to work for very little pay often because they are ignorant of or unable to access other employment opportunities. In my opinion, the Oompa-Loompas remain willing employees to Wonka because they prefer the environment provided by the capitalist system. I have suggested that Dahl accepts the workings of the capitalist society. This is an instance where Dahl proposes a possible mutually beneficial relationship even though political imbalance exists.

The most telling parallel to the slave trade is seen in how Wonka “shipped them all over here, every man, woman, and child in the Oompa-Loompa tribe” similar to how slave traders would export people as cargo. Like the slaves, the Oompa-Loompas “all speak English now” (95-96). Language, as Macaulay and post-colonial theorists have noted, colonize the mind. The Oompa-Loompas apparent joy in captivity lies most likely in their adoption of Wonka’s capitalist attitudes. The notion of the happy slave allows for deeper analysis of the characteristic of consumers within the capitalist framework when we consider the revised version.

White Oompa-Loompas

The Oompa-Loompas are now with “skin [that] was rosy-white… (and) long hair [that] was golden-brown” (101-102). Racially, the Oompa-Loompas have changed from Blacks to distinctively Anglo-European. This revision provides an alternative reading of the text which is more relevant in the present capitalist society. Though motivated by the need to be politically correct, Dahl could have portrayed the Oompa-Loompas as unlike the orange skinned and green haired i.e. in the 1971 musical film adaptation but instead, he describes them as distinctly white.

By depicting the slave figure as the dominant, normative white population, the narrative relocates the discussion of the disadvantages specific to the black Oompa-Loompas to the majority. The deep rooted unhappiness, alienation of labour and the sense that the rewards for labor is insignificant are not just sentiments of the racial minority but universal questions about an individual’s place in the capitalist world. These concerns are not exclusive to the colonized but are reflections of a post-war delusion when the fragility of the American Dream is questioned. As a point of reference, in works like Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman”, the same insecurities and uncertainties are deliberated and articulated. My point here is that Dahl’s fantastic stories are concerned with issues real and relevant to the larger world. The white Oompa-Loompas who are emblematic of the dominant majority of society repositions the paradoxes of slavery as enslavement by consumerism. Like the ‘happy slaves’, the general public have assimilated consumerist ideologies such that they are blind to the limitations of the capitalist institution that they live and work in.

Conclusion for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Due to practical constraints, I have limited my discussion of the capitalist representations in the text to only the most salient. Other areas which could be further examined are the various aspects or flaws of modern capitalist culture that the other four children represent. In broad strokes, Augustus Gloop personifies gluttony or greed, Veruca Salt is a spokesperson for excessive demands; Violet’s gum chewing could be an analogy of repetitive, unfulfilling consumption by over-achievers in society and Mike Teavee, like Mrs. Wormwood as the representative of the media obsessed, unthinking consumerist generation.

In his discussion of the flâneur, Baudrillard has suggested that the city as a consumerist space is a hyper-reality where people are constantly exposed to commodities they desire but would be unable to attain. In this vein, the glass elevator too can be envisioned as a form of reverse window shopping, the elevator being a tool and exhibitor of capitalism that brings one around the spaces of consumerism.

Conclusion

Through the analysis of the capitalist and consumerist elements in Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factor, this essay has attempted to show how children’s fantasy can be influenced by capitalism and consumerism ideologies prevalent in society. In Dahl’s portrayal of the dynamics between power and affluence, there is a certain degree of ambivalence. Dahl’s biography shows him as someone who has enjoyed fame and wealth by catering his works to the demands of publishers and readers; we can assume then, that Dahl is comfortable in accepting the variations of capitalism and consumerism in society. His complicit agreement with the benefits of private wealth can be seen in the narratives where material wealth is used to reward protagonists such as Miss Honey and Charlie.

Discussion of meanings in symbols of capitalism and consumerism eventually collapse to reveal an ambiguity in Dahls’ portrayal of these social thoughts. With Matilda, Dahl’s reinstallation of institutionalized authority seems to subvert the power and maturity he allows Matilda. While in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dahl suggests a utopia within a capitalist framework. In my opinion, Dahl subscribes to capitalist and consumerist values. However, at the same time, the insightfulness which characterizes authors allows him to see the problems of exploitation, inequality, individualism etc. that accompanies these social thoughts. The philanthropic acts of Dahl might provide insights to his approach in the reconciliation of the paradox. Money often translates to power in capitalist societies. Therefore donations are a way to reallocate wealth and hence endowing the disadvantaged with power. In acts of kindness, Miss Honey who ‘adopts’ Matilda and Willy Wonka who ‘adopts’ the Buckets, a balance is attained where the bourgeois fulfills an emotional need while helping the proletariats.

Even in this interpretation of the politics between the two classes, kindness could be like religion, interpreted as a way in which the proletariat rebellion could be contained. Perhaps at this point, the best conclusion that can be drawn is to recall that capitalism and consumerism are multifaceted and complex social phenomenon, and because of this complexity, symbols and metaphors will naturally become overdetermined and conclusions never satisfactory.

reSEArch Gleaned from a Sea of Information

List of Works Cited

Dahl, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. England: Puffin Books, 2001.

__________. Danny the Champion of the World. England: New Windmill Series, 1990.

__________. Matilda. England: New Windmill Series, 1991.

Columbus, Christopher. “First Voyage of Columbus: Meeting the Islanders (1492)”. Athena Review. Volume 1, no. 3.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by: Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Dover Publications, 1995.

Hunt, Peter. Criticism, Theory & Children’s Literature. Great Britain: Basil Blackwell, 1991.

Smith, Adam. Wealth of Nations. 1776.

Veblen, Thorstein. Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions. New York: Macmillan, 1899.

Wolfgang, Schivelbushch. Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants. Translated by: David Jacobson. USA: Vintage Books, 1993.

Yeoh, Elaine Kwan Yin. Violence in the writings of Roald Dahl. National University of Singapore, 1989.

Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics for Beginners. [cited 27 March 2006] available from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem09.html

Felluga, Dino. "Modules on Lacan: On the Gaze." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Nov 28, 2003.. (Purdue University) [Cited: 22 Mar 2006]; available from

Goh, Robbie. “EN 4223 Lecture One – Introduction to the Gothic” in EN 4223 - Topics in the Nineteenth Century: The Gothic and After [database online] (Singapore: National University of Singapore), 2006 – [cited 4 April 2006]; available from http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellgohbh/3202a.html#lect1.

Treglown, Jeremy. Roald Dahl: A Biography. ”Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Politically Correct Oompa–Loompa Evolution” in Roald Dahl Fans.com [cited 27 March 2006] ;available from http://www.roalddahlfans.com/books/charoompa.php

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Dir. Tim Burton. Perfs. Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore. Film. Warner Bro. Pictures, 2005.

Selected List of References

No, titles are not italicized.

Yes, I know they should be.

No, I didn't check for errors.

Yes, I don't care.

Other References

Primary Works:

Dahl, Roald. Boy. Great Britain: Puffin Books, 1986.

__________. Going Solo. England: Puffin Books, 1988.

__________. The BFG. England: Puffin Books, 1984.

__________. The Witches. England: Puffin Books, 2001.

__________. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. England: New Windmill Series.


Secondary Works:

Ang, Susan. The Widening World of Children's Literature. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Gose, Elliott B. Mere creatures: A Study of Modern Fantasy Tales for Children. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1988.

Hunt, Peter. An Introduction to Children's Literature. Oxford [England]; New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Klein, Gillian. Reading into Racism: Bias in Children's Literature and Learning Material. London; Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985.

Tomlinson, Carl M. Essentials of Children's Literature. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 2002.

Yu, Ovidia Tsin Yuen. Questionable sympathies : Roald Dahl as a Writer for Children. National University of Singapore, 1985.