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.