Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

In these chapters Dahl develops the theme of Politicians as Ineffectual and Ridiculous. Miss Tibbs’s song about the President underlines his exceptional unintelligence: “When he was twenty-three he couldn’t read or write” (65), and “he couldn’t even get a job delivering the papers!” (65). These facts led Miss Tibbs to realize that politics was the ideal career path for the “little clot.” The song portrays politics not as a vocation that requires intelligence, but rather as a popularity contest in which corrupt candidates use trickery “to win the people’s vote” (66). Dahl takes aim specifically at politicians’ practice of only expressing politically savvy half-truths, when Miss Tibbs sings: “You never say exactly what you mean” (66). The President’s reaction to the obviously demeaning and critical song only confirms his stupidity: “‘Bravo Nanny!’ cried the President, clapping his hands” (66).

Wonka continues to be a chaotic, ridiculous, and humorous character in these chapters. He gives the group a solemn warning about the terrifying Knids, but his intended solemnity is undercut by his ridiculous expression “You’d have been rasped into a thousand tiny bits, grated like cheese and focculated alive!” (56). The outlandish metaphors and nonsense neologisms are humorous in the context of a serious speech, as is the unexpected specificity of the details of the Knids, who live “eighteen thousand four hundred and twenty-seven million miles away” (56), and who are often mistaken for shooting stars but are actually “shooting Knids” who get “sizzled up halfway through” (56).

In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the prequel to Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Charlie distinguishes himself from the other children that are touring Wonka’s chocolate factory, who are characterized as gluttonous, greedy, and overindulged. Charlie, on the other hand, is characterized as kind and altruistic, leading Wonka to deem him the most suitable contestant to inherit the factory. Charlie’s behavior in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator is in keeping with this characterization. For example, when the group in the elevator sees the Knids attacking the Commuter Capsule, Charlie exclaims: “We must help them! […] We’ve got to do something! There are a hundred and fifty people inside that thing!” (74). Charlie is so concerned for the people aboard the Commuter Capsule that he willingly places himself in danger to help them. Similarly, Grandpa Joe, who shares Charlie’s openness to adventure and strangeness as well as in his caring nature, says, “There’s someone over there needs a helping hand and it’s our job to give it” (76). Charlie and Grandpa Joe continue to be altruistic and brave.

On the other hand, Grandma Georgina and Grandma Josephine are constantly fearful, adhering to the demeaning trope of fretful old women. When they approach the space hotel for the second time and see it surrounded by Knids, Grandma Josephine screams, “they’re Vermicious Knids! Turn back at once!” (72), while Grandma Georgina screams, “Reverse!” When Wonka steers the elevator toward the Commuter Capsule to save its passengers from the Knids, Grandma Josephine screams, “Stop him!” (76). Grandma Josephine and Grandma Georgina, with their self-concern and fear, act as foils to Charlie and Grandpa Joe.

Wonka’s rousing address at the end of Chapter 10, which he delivers as the group prepare to save the people in the Commuter Capsule, is filled with intertextual references. The line “into the breach, dear friends, into the breach!” (76), for example, is a reference to a famous line in William Shakespeare’s Henry V (1415): “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead” (3.1:1-2). In this scene, King Henry urges his soldiers to stand and fight, or else face certain and pointless death. Wonka and the Buckets’ final stand against the Knids presents a ridiculous and satirical version of the Battle of Agincourt.