Wonka's Chocolate Factory

Wonka's Chocolate Factory is a fictional confectionery production factory that appears in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It is run by Willy Wonka.

Location

In both the book and the films, the location of the Wonka factory is ambiguous.

History

2005 film

Willy Wonka began his candy empire in 1985 with a small shop in town. The word spread across the world, Wonka decided to expand. Five years later, he built a chocolate factory, "fifty times as big as any other."

His recipes were so popular that competitors were stealing his secret recipes by sending in spies to pose as his workers. Feeling betrayed after hearing that his competitors have copied his recipes, Wonka told all his workers to go home and closed the factory in an attempt to save it.

Some time later, he re-opened the factory and chocolate was created once more. But that left a mystery: no person had been in the factory for 15 years. Yet in the last decade and a half, the candy tasted better and better. It is revealed during a tour that the workers are a race of people called the Oompa-Loompas from Loompaland.

Rooms

There are four main rooms that the tour goes through, losing one child at a time. They pass many other rooms but do not enter.

The Chocolate Room

The Chocolate Room is the first room that the group enters. It is said that everything in this room is edible: the pavements, the bushes, even the grass. There are trees made of taffy that grow jelly apples, bushes that sprout lollipops, mushrooms that spurt whipped cream, pumpkins filled with sugar cubes instead of seeds, jelly bean stalks, and spotty candy cubes. The main icon of the room is the Chocolate River where the chocolate is mixed and churned by the waterfall, but must be untouched by human hands. Willy Wonka proclaims, "No other factory in the world mixes its chocolate by waterfall."

Pipes that hang on the ceiling come down and suck up the chocolate, then send it to other rooms of the factory such as the Fudge Room. Augustus Gloop falls into the chocolate river and is sucked into the pipe leading to the Fudge Room after falling into the river while drinking from it. Augustus is disqualified from winning the chocolate factory because of his inability to control his gluttony. Wonka had an Oompa-Loompa take Mrs. Gloop to the Fudge Room to look for her son.

Also, there is Pink Sweet Boat that is operated by Oompa-Loompas which takes the tour group on a Chocolate River Ride.

The Inventing Room

The Inventing Room is the second room that the tour goes through. This room is home to Wonka's new—and still insufficiently tested—candies such as Everlasting Gobstoppers, Hair Toffee, and Wonka's greatest idea so far Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum. This candy is a three course dinner all by itself containing, "Tomato soup, roast beef, and blueberry pie." However, the gum is not right yet for once the chewer gets to the dessert, the side effect is that they turn into a giant "blueberry". This happened to twenty Oompa-Loompas during each of the gum's testing experiments where all of them turned into blueberries. This also happens to Violet Beauregarde after she rashly grabs and consumes the experimental gum. Violet is disqualified from winning the chocolate factory because of her inability to control her boasting and pride. Violet is subsequently taken to the Juicing Room by the Oompa-Loompas so that the juice can be removed from her immediately before she explodes. The tour then leaves the Inventing Room.

In the 1971 film, the Inventing Room was working on Exploding Candy.

In the 2005 film, the Inventing Room was working on Hair Toffee that would grow hair. It hasn't been perfected yet since an Oompa-Loompa tried some and his body is now covered in long head hair.

In the 2013 musical, the Three-Course Dinner Chewing Gum was called "Gastromolecular Unicellulose Mouthmosh" (G.U.M. for short) and Wonka reveals that the cause of the flaw in the gum is because of "excess fructose in the fluid sacks".

The Nut Room

After an exhausting jog down a series of corridors, Wonka allows the party to rest briefly outside the Nut Room, though he forbids them to enter. This room is where Wonka uses trained squirrels to break open good walnuts for use in his sweets. All bad walnuts are thrown into a garbage chute which leads to a furnace that is lit every other day. Veruca Salt desperately wants a squirrel, but becomes furious when Wonka tells her she cannot have one. She tries to grab a squirrel for herself, but it rejects her as a "bad nut" and an army of squirrels haul her across the floor and throw her down the garbage chute. Veruca is disqualified from winning the chocolate factory because of her inability to control her greed and selfishness. Wonka assures her father that she could be stuck on top of the garbage chute and they quickly enter the Nut Room. As Mr. and Mrs. Salt lean over the hole to look for Veruca, one of the squirrels rushes up behind them and pushes them in.

In the 1971 film version, the Nut Sorting Room is an Egg Sorting Room with large geese laying golden chocolate eggs in preparation for Easter (Wonka never tells the geese to stop laying their chocolate eggs so that he can be ahead for next Easter). The sorting mechanism is different, with a meter that sorts the good chocolate eggs from the bad chocolate eggs, but Veruca places herself on the mechanism while trying to get a goose during a musical number and falls down the chute as a bad egg. Her father follows her down the chute to save her. Willy assures the remaining members of his tour group that the furnace that the garbage chute leads to is lit every other day.

The 2005 film version followed the original storyline with Veruca wanting a squirrel and being rejected. She is thrown down a garbage chute to the incinerator that is lit every Tuesday. Luckily for Veruca and her father, Wonka is told by an Oompa-Loompa that the incinerator is broken allowing three weeks of rotten garbage to break their fall.

The Television Room

The Television Room is home to Wonka's latest invention called Television Chocolate (known as Wonkavision in the 1971 film) where they take a giant bar of Wonka chocolate and send it through the air in a million pieces to appear in a television, just like a photograph used in normal television. Because of the size of the camera in contrast to that of the screen, the bar has been shrunk to the size of a normal bar when it appears on the screen. The bar can be taken from the screen, and even consumed. At Wonka's behest, Charlie takes the newly shrunk bar (Mike believes the bar is just an image on a screen). Mike Teavee is amazed at this new discovery and attempts to send himself through television resulting in him being shrunk down to be no more than an inch high. Mike is disqualified from winning the chocolate factory because of his inability to overcome his sloth which manifested itself in watching too much TV. This behavior led to an atrophying of his senses because the natural environment is the primary source of sensory stimulation and Mike’s primary experience of nature was replaced by his secondary, vicarious, often distorted, dual sensory (vision and sound only), one-way experience of television and other electronic media. This atrophying of his senses resulted in his de-sensitivity to violence, as well as feelings of angst and frustration coupled with destructive behavior. Wonka suggests that he be put through the Gum-Stretcher where he tests the stretchiness of gum. He also planned to give him vitamins. The vitamins are A-G, I-R, T-Z, (because "Vitamin S makes you sick" and "Vitamin H makes you grow horns") and Vitamin Wonka, which will make his toes as long as his fingers "so he can play piano with his feet". The Oompa-Loompas escort the Teavee family to the Gum Stretcher.

In the 1971 version, Mike's mother accompanies him to the factory while his father accompanies him in the 2005 film. In both the 1971 and 2005 film versions, Mike Teavee is stretched by the Taffy Puller.

Other rooms

Other rooms that are mentioned but not visited are listed below in alphabetical order where they have appeared in the books and/or the films. Each is given the name of the product it contains which is presumably made or extracted there.

The 2005 film also included a Puppet Hospital and Burn Center for the burned puppets from the Wonka's Welcome Song puppet show as well as the Administration Offices (where the female Oompa-Loompas work) when the Great Glass Elevator passes by them.

Many of the sweets produced in these rooms are also mentioned in another Roald Dahl book The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me.

Transportation

There are various transportations in Wonka's Chocolate Factory:

The Pink Sweet Boat

The Pink Sweet Boat is a giant pink boat made of spun sugar and boiled sweets. Oompa-Loompas row the boat through the factory. The boat runs down the Chocolate River that goes throughout the factory.

In the 1971 film, it is a blue and white paddle boat known as the "Wonkatania".

In the 2005 film, the Pink Sweet Boat is similar to a viking ship where one Oompa-Loompa bangs a drum while the other Oompa-Loompas row. This version of the Pink Sweet Boat also has a seahorse figurehead.

Wonkamobile

In the 1971 film, the Wonkamobile is a vehicle was powered by ginger ale and other drinks that have suds in them that come out during the ride. The Wonkamobile also goes through a "Hsawaknow" (which is "Wonka Wash" spelled backwards) which gets anyone who gets suds on them cleaned up before they disembark.

The Great Glass Elevator

The Great Glass Elevator is made of thick glass and has a wall covered with glass buttons. It is also referred to as the Wonkavator. The Great Glass Elevator's buttons can take you anywhere in the factory and can go up, down, sideways, and slant ways. There is also an "Up and Out" button that takes the Great Glass Elevator out of the factory and anywhere that Willy Wonka wants it to take him. It was mentioned by Willy Wonka to Charlie Bucket that he has been wanting to press that button for a long time.

See also

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