Grandpa Joe Character Analysis

Mr. Bucket, however hard he worked, and however fast he screwed on the caps, was never able to make enough to buy one-half of the things that so large a family needed. There wasn’t even enough money to buy proper food for them all. The only meals they could afford were bread and margarine for breakfast, boiled potatoes and cabbage for lunch, and cabbage soup for supper. Sundays were a bit better. They all looked forward to Sundays because then, although they had exactly the same, everyone was allowed a second helping.

He was the only bright thing in their lives, and his evening visits were something that they looked forward to all day long. Often, Charlie’s mother and father would come in as well, and stand by the door, listening to the stories that the old people told; and thus, for perhaps half an hour every night, this room would become a happy place, and the whole family would forget that it was hungry and poor.

“Wouldn’t it be something, Charlie, to open a bar of candy and see a Golden Ticket glistening inside!”

“It certainly would, Grandpa. But there isn’t a hope,” Charlie said sadly. “I only get one bar a year.”

“You never know darling,” said Grandma Georgina. “It’s your birthday next week. You have as much chance as anybody else.”

“I’m afraid that simply isn’t true,” said Grandpa George. “The kids who are going to find the Golden Tickets are the ones who can afford to buy candy bars every day. Our Charlie only gets one a year. There isn’t a hope.”

“I don’t think the girl’s father played it quite fair, Grandpa, do you?” Charlie murmured.

“He spoils her,” Grandpa Joe said. “And no good can ever come from spoiling a child like that, Charlie, you mark my words.”

“That child,” said Grandpa Joe, poking his head up from under the blanket one icy morning, “that child has got to have more food. It doesn’t matter about us. We’re too old to bother with. But a growing boy! He can’t go on like this! He’s beginning to look like a skeleton!”

“What can one do?” murmured Grandma Josephine miserably. “He refuses to take any of ours. I hear his mother tried to slip her own piece of bread onto his plate at breakfast this morning, but he wouldn’t touch it. He made her take it back.”

“He’s a fine fellow,” said Grandpa George. “He deserves better than this.”

The tall bony old figure of Grandpa Joe could be seen standing quietly among them, and beside him, holding tightly on to his hand, was little Charlie Bucket himself.

All the children, except Charlie, had both their mothers and fathers with them, and it was a good thing that they had, otherwise the whole party might have gotten out of hand. They were so eager to get going that their parents were having to hold them back by force to prevent them from climbing over the gates.

Charlie was holding tightly onto his grandfather’s bony old hand. He was in a whirl of excitement. Everything that he had seen so far—the great chocolate river, the waterfall, the huge sucking pipes, the candy meadows, the Oompa-Loompas, the beautiful pink boat, and most of all, Mr. Willy Wonka himself—had been so astonishing that he began to wonder whether there were could possibly be any more astonishments left. Where were they going now? What were they going to see? And what in the world was going to happen in the next room?

“Mind you, there are thousands of clever men who would give anything for the chance to come in and take over from me, but I don’t want that sort of person. I don’t want a grown-up person at all. A grownup won’t listen to me; he won’t learn. He will try to do things his own way and not mine. So I have to have a child. I want a good sensible loving child, one to whom I can tell all my most precious candy-making secrets—while I am still alive.”

“I’m afraid my mother won’t come with us,” Charlie said sadly.

“Why ever not?”

“Because she won’t leave Grandma Josephine and Grandma Georgina and Grandpa George.”

“But they must come too.”

“They can’t,” Charlie said. “They’re very old and they haven’t been out of bed for twenty years.”

“Then we’ll take the bed along as well, with them in it,” said Mr. Wonka. “There’s plenty of room in this elevator for a bed.”

“You couldn’t get the bed out of the house,” said Grandpa Joe. “It won’t go through the door.”

“You mustn’t despair!” cried Mr. Wonka. “Nothing is impossible! You watch!”