41 pages • 1 hour read
Roald DahlCharlie and the Great Glass Elevator
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1972A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Imagination and Adventure
Wonka’s incredible chocolate factory and glass elevator represent a world where the governing laws of practicality, logic, and science are rendered irrelevant in favor of silliness and imagination. Dahl uses imagery throughout Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator to emphasize the whimsy of this world. For example, describing the view from the glass-bottomed elevator, he says: “Soon they could see the countries and oceans of the earth spread out below them like a map” (7). Furthermore, when the family leaves Earth’s atmosphere and begins to float around the elevator, Dahl describes the sight as seen by Shuckworth, Shanks, and Showler to capture the bizarre and humorous scene: “A weird glass box in splendid orbit around the earth, and inside the box, seen not too clearly but seen nonetheless, were seven grown-ups and one small boy and a big double bed, all floating” (19).
The Vermicious Knids add a further, thrilling element to the adventure. These aliens are hyperbolically evil and powerful, as well as bizarre looking: “Its body is really one huge muscle, enormously strong, but very stretchy and squishy” (58). Dahl uses the terrifying Knids to test the mettle of his hero, Charlie. Ultimately Charlie proves himself to be both brave and altruistic, urging Wonka to defend the Commuter Capsule against the Knids even at risk to themselves: “‘Then we must help them!’ cried Charlie. ‘We’ve got to do something! There are a hundred and fifty people inside that thing!’” (74). Again, the suspense of the situation is conveyed through imagery: “Squadron after squadron of giant Vermicious Knids flung themselves furiously against Mr. Wonka’s marvelous machine. WHAM! CRASH! BANG! The noise was thunderous” (78). The sensory description of the Knids’ attack adds further imaginative detail to the incredible scene and emphasizes the power and might of the Knids, building narrative tension until the moment where the Knids burn in the Earth’s atmosphere in a shower of explosions, a fitting conclusion to the fantastical encounter.
When the Buckets return with Wonka to the chocolate factory, Dahl continues to use imagery to convey the wondrous and inconceivable sights, including Oompa-Loompa villages (“a cluster of tiny houses shaped like upside-down cups” [127]) and candy mines (“all over the rock-face there were hundreds of Oompa-Loompas working with picks and pneumatic drills” [127]). The magic and wonder of the factory is conveyed by these incredible spaces, which take elements of the real world and render them joyful and silly. Dahl implies that these sights are just glimpses of the immense factory, establishing it not just as a place where candy is produced, but rather as a self-sufficient universe of fun, excitement, and adventure.
Greed and Gluttony Will Be Punished
In Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, as in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dahl punishes greed and gluttony. The first instance of this is the space hotel’s fate. Space Hotel “U.S.A.” is hyperbolically grand: “On the floor there was a thick green carpet. Twenty tremendous chandeliers hung shimmering from the ceiling. The walls were covered with valuable pictures and there were big soft armchairs all over the place” (39). The immensity and decadence of the space is further emphasized by the shocked silence of Willie Wonka and the Buckets when they enter: “The group stare in silence at all this luxury” (39). Like the Titanic, which was allegedly unsinkable, the downfall of Space Hotel “U.S.A.” seems to be predicted in its pomposity and reputation: It is hailed as “the greatest machine ever built by man” (39). Through the hotel, Dahl condemns the arrogance of the President—it wasn’t enough for him to have a grand hotel on Earth, he decided that he wanted one in space too. However, this hubristic greed is punished when Space Hotel “U.S.A.” is taken over by Vermicious Knids, who kill many of the staff from the Commuter Capsule and render the “greatest machine” unusable. The hotel’s fate symbolizes the pitfalls of excessive consumerism and greed.
Similarly, Grandma Georgina’s experience with Wonka-Vite is an allegory about the consequences of selfish behavior and failing to heed warnings. In a scene that recalls the fates of Veruca Salt, Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Grandma Georgina fails the moral test presented by the factory. Wonka gives the grandparents Wonka-Vite, magical pills that take 20 years off a person’s life. However, Grandma Georgina, Grandma Josephine, and Grandpa George take four Wonka-Vite pills each instead of Wonka’s recommendation of one or two. Grandma Josephine and Grandpa George end up as crying babies, but Grandma Georgina, who is 78 when she takes the four pills, ends up in the terrifying and hellish world of Minusland. She is rescued by Wonka and Charlie, who use Vita-Wonk to age her again; however, the imprecise nature of Vita-Wonk means that Grandma Georgina overshoots her target age by nearly 300 years and has to be reverse-aged once more to return to her original age of 78. Grandma Georgina’s greed leaves her no better off than before she took the pills, but she does not reflect on her own selfishness or foolishness in this situation. Instead, she brands Wonka a “meddling old mackerel” (150).
On the other hand, Dahl rewards characters who display temperance and altruism. When Charlie sees the Knids attacking the Commuter Capsule, he bravely declares, “We’ve got to do something! There are a hundred and fifty people inside that thing!” (74). His resolve sets in motion a plan that tows the Commuter Capsule to safety and saves those aboard. Charlie, his family, and Wonka are rewarded for this heroic deed in the President’s invitation to the White House: “[T]he most important persons in the land will be present at this gathering to salute the heroes whose dazzling deeds will be written forever in the history of our nation” (159). Dahl contrasts Grandma Georgina’s selfishness with Charlie’s kindness, and suggests that individuals who care for the well-being of others will be rewarded.
Politicians as Ineffectual and Ridiculous
Through President Lancelot R. Gilligrass, Dahl present a humorous and satirical critique of politicians. Miss Tibbs’s song about the President establishes him as exceptionally unintelligent and incompetent: “He couldn’t even get a job delivering the papers!” (65). Dahl suggests, through Miss Tibbs’s song, that elected officials can be remarkably stupid and manipulative, spinning lies “to win the people’s vote” (66).
The President’s advisors quickly prove to be just as useless, in part because the President makes ridiculous choices for his council, appointing his cat, Mrs. Taubsypuss, and his childhood nanny, Miss Tibbs, as well as a sword swallower from Afghanistan. As is typical of Dahl’s humor, the members of the council are unexpectedly and hilariously specific. The Chief Financial Advisor receives the praise of the group when he—literally rather than figuratively—balances the budget: “‘Look at me, everybody! I’ve balanced the budget!’ And indeed he had. He stood proudly in the middle of the room with the enormous two-hundred-billion-dollar budget balanced beautifully on the top of his bald head” (35). This humorous play on words further establishes the group as ineffectual and incompetent.
Dahl suggests that, while bureaucratic groups may spend a lot of time discussing problems, they are incapable of generating practical solutions. President Gilligrass, instead of addressing the potential bomb threat on the space hotel, designs an absurd fly trap that relies on flies falling through a ladder and breaking their neck. The group of advisors show themselves to be equally stupid when they praise the President’s perceived ingenuity: “‘Tremendous, Mr. President!’ they all explained. ‘Fantastic! A stroke of genius!’ ‘I wish to order one hundred thousand for the Army immediately,’ said the Chief of the Army” (36). The group is hilariously hapless, unfocused, and ill qualified to govern a country. Dahl, a famously patriotic Brit, may have also been mocking America, which eclipsed Britain as the world’s leading political and military power in the 20th century.
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By Roald Dahl
