Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Vice and Virtue
Parenting
Poverty and Wealth
Fun, Absurdity, and Wonder
Prejudice and Bigotry
Summary
Analysis
Mr. Wonka asks where they should go next and how many kids are left. Grandpa Joe says haltingly that Charlie is the only child left. Mr. Wonka pretends to be surprised and then seems overcome with happiness. He says that Charlie won and shakes Charlie’s hand furiously. Mr. Wonka says that he had a hunch Charlie would win—and now, the fun can really start. They have lots of things to do, arrangements to make, and people to fetch. He grandly ushers Grandpa Joe and Charlie into the elevator and says that he’s going to choose the next button.
The fact that Mr. Wonka only pretends to be surprised that Charlie is the only child left confirms that Mr. Wonka planned to lose children throughout the tour. Given how much Mr. Wonka has already shown Charlie and Grandpa Joe, it’s unclear what, exactly, will be even more fun than what they’re already seen. The factory, this suggests, will continue to surprise people who know how to look at it with wonder and appreciation rather than skepticism and greed.
Themes
Charlie just knows that something wild is going to happen—but he’s not afraid. He’s just excited. Grandpa Joe is too. Mr. Wonka presses a button labeled Up And Out; the doors close, and the elevator shoots straight up. Grandpa Joe and Mr. Wonka whoop with joy, and Mr. Wonka shouts that they have to go faster, or they won’t “get through.” He explains that they have to go through the factory ceiling. The elevator might break, but the glass is also pretty thick.
Charlie trusts Mr. Wonka and Grandpa Joe to keep him safe and headed in the right direction, so it’s not frightening to him that they’re going to burst through the ceiling in a glass elevator. Mr. Wonka is so nonchalant about the glass being thick, which is humorous but also reiterates that Mr. Wonka has more fun when things might go disastrously wrong at any moment.
Themes
With a crash, the elevator shoots out the roof of the factory and into the sky. Mr. Wonka tells Grandpa Joe to not be afraid, and he presses another button. The elevator stops high in the sky, offering its riders a view of the town. Charlie can see everything down below. Mr. Wonka explains that the elevator can do this because of “candy power,” and then he points to the other children heading home.
Finally, the readers see what the glass elevator’s purpose really is: to show the winning child a view of the city from above. This symbolically suggests that the factory tour didn’t just give Charlie a look at a fantastical factory: it’s also going to change how he sees the outside world.
Themes
