Charlie And The Chocolate Factory Allusions - 1308 Words

A Golden Ticket to Hell: Personal Experience, Allusion and Morality Oompa Loompas. A mystical chocolate factory. A bizarre, yet lovable chocolate tycoon. These are only a few elements that readers of the literary brilliance known as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory have come to love and cherish. Written by Roald Dahl and published in 1964, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory chronicles the adventure of five atypical children, their adult supervisors and an eccentric chocolatier. What seems as a once in a lifetime, blissful journey for these fortunate children turns out to be a hellish, last man standing bout in which the victor inherits a multi-million dollar operation. But why should this novel deserve literary merit in classes across†¦show more content†¦Dahl accomplishes this through characters’ personality and development as well as the features of the journey through the factory. The first allusion, and most obvious, to Inferno is the characters in the novel. Each of the children, sans Charlie, represents at least one of the seven deadly sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride) that divide the circles of hell. Take for example Agustus Gloop. This nine year old, quite rotund child whose main pastime, as the narrator points out, is eating, is the clearest example of gluttony. And if this is not clear enough by his actions at the chocolate river, the Oompa Loompas reiterate through song. They sing, â€Å"Augustus Gloop! Augustus Gloop! The great big greedy nincompoop! How long could we allow this beast to gorge and guzzle, feed and feast on everything he wanted to? However long this pig might live, we’re positive he’d never give even the smallest bit of fun or happiness to anyone† (Dahl 85). Through the Oompa Loompas’ song Dahl alludes to the third circle of hell through which Dante and Virgil pass in Inferno. In this circle, the gluttonous are forced to live in a pool of vile matter representing their life’s pursuit of indulgence. Moreover, Gloop is bound to the same fate as he nearly drowns in his own gluttony in the form of a chocolate river. However, Agu stus Gloop is not the only child in which Dahl conceals many of theShow MoreRelatedChildrens Literature13219 Words   |  53 Pagesmajority of the childrens books that preceded the Alice books, Carrolls works are remarkably free of religious or social lessons. Carroll even gently parodied Isaac Wattss poem Against Idleness and Mischief from Divine Songs (1715), yet the allusion also confirms the continued popularity of Wattss religious work. Religious lessons, such as those found in George MacDonalds At the Back of the North Wind (1871), or social lessons, as those emphasized in Christina Rossettis Speaking LikenessesRead MoreLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pagesmetals are magnetic is also a generalization. It is a nonuniversal generalization, a statistical generalization. Universal generalizations are sometimes called categorical generalizations. When someone says, Generally speaking, adults prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream, the word generally here indicates a non-universal generalization. It means most of the time but not necessarily all the time. Ditto for in general and usually. Generalizations arent always easy to detect. A shark