51 pages 1 hour read

Roald Dahl

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1964

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Symbols & Motifs

The Chocolate Room

The Chocolate Room, a beautiful, inconceivably large space located deep underground, symbolizes the magic, and wonder of Wonka’s Factory. Roald Dahl emphasizes the grandness of the space through the visitors’ reactions: “The children and their parents were too flabbergasted to speak … They were bewildered and dazzled. They were completely bowled over by the hugeness of the whole thing” (65-66).

Dahl uses vivid imagery to conjure a space which appeals to children: The Chocolate Room is hyperbolically beautiful and magical, with “enough chocolate in [the river] to fill every bathtub in the entire country” (64). Everything that exists in the space is edible and delicious, with even the grass being “made of a new kind of soft, minty sugar” that is “delectable” (66). In addition to grass, there are “graceful trees and bushes [...] weeping willows and alders and tall clumps of rhododendrons with their pink and red and mauve blossoms” (64). The inclusion of “nature” speaks to Wonka’s Factory as a whole being more than a place for making candies and chocolates to be sold—it is a place to be enjoyed in itself. The sheer joy of creation is what makes the Chocolate Room and the rest of the factory so special.