Postscript: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Alfred A. Knopf

My copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had an interview with Roald Dahl.  In his interview with Todd McCormack in 1988, Dahl answered a number of questions, including how he creates such interesting characters and, more importantly, how he manages to avoid terrifying his young readers.

His interview was enlightening as it showed his process for fabricating stories, revealing his best tips and tricks for keeping up one's momentum, uncovering where he gets his ideas and why.  I found it fascinating to see how he worked, to find out why he did what he did and why he created what he created - and it was nice to get a glimpse into his creative capacity.

So how does Roald Dahl create such interesting characters as Veruca Salt and Grandpa Joe?  Well, for one, he refuses to write ordinary characters:

"When you're writing a book, with people in it as opposed to animals, it is no good having people who are ordinary, because they are not going to interest your readers at all.  Every writer in the world has to use the characters that have something interesting about them, and this is even more true in children's books.  I find that the only way to make my characters really interesting to children is to exaggerate all their good or bad qualities, and so if a person is nasty or bad or cruel, you make them very nasty, very bad, very cruel.  If they are ugly, you make them extremely ugly.  That, I think, is fun and makes an impact."

Exaggeration certainly does make an impact in reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  It makes characters much more memorable.  Furthermore, it sets distinct lines between "good" and "bad" - that is, it emphasizes the good qualities of characters (like Charlie, and Grandpa Joe) and the bad qualities of characters (read:  Veruca Salt, Mike Teavee, etc.) and makes them more likable or despicable.  It makes them unique and, like Dahl points out, makes it fun.

Moreover, I would think that the reader finds it easier to bear when bad characters meet an equally bad ending.  When horrible characters meet a horrible end, it isn't always a tragic event.  However, Dahl takes the added step of making horrific events less - well, horrific:

"You never describe any horrors happening, you just say that they do happen.  Children who got crunched up in Willy Wonka's chocolate machine were carried away and that was the end of it.  When the parents screamed, "Where has he gone?" and Wonka said "Well, he's gone to be made into fudge," that's where you laugh, because you don't see it happening, you don't hear the child screaming or anything like that ever, ever, ever."

His argument makes sense.  When left up to the imagination, it's hard to envision that Augustus Gloop would ever be made into fudge - it's impossible, right? - and it's even harder to imagine Violet Beauregard turning into a blueberry and being juiced.  These events are never described in detail:  you will find no gore, you will find no real violence; rather, you will see the effects much later - you know, after you realize his characters are indeed still alive.

And, I suppose, that makes terrible things - Augustus Gloop being made into fudge, Violet Beauregard turning into a blueberry, Veruca Salt falling down a garbage chute to the incinerator, Mike Teavee getting shrunk to the size of a person's thumb - easier to stomach.

Postscript: The Red Tent

Picador USA

Upon finishing The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, I discovered a "reading group guide" provided by the publisher, which includes a short paragraph detailing the motivation behind Diamant's The Red Tent:

"The biblical story that pits the two sisters [Leah and Rachel] against one another never sat right with me.  The traditional view of Leah as the ugly and/or spiteful sister, and of Jacob as indifferent to her, seemed odd in light of the fact that the Bible gives them nine children together.  As I re-read Genesis over the years, I settled on the story of Dinah, their daughter.  The drama and her total silence...cried out for explanation, and I decided to imagine one."

Her argument, I think, makes sense.  When observing the relationship between Jacob and his wives, when reading over Dinah's story in the Bible, Diamant's explanation of events in The Red Tent is logical and thoughtful.  She admits that her novel is "not a translation but a work of fiction" and it is a "radical departure from the historical text," but her book, regardless, raises questions about events in the Bible:  what happened to Dinah and her mothers?

As you might expect, The Red Tent begins with Dinah's mothers - Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah - and explains their relationship to one another, to Jacob, and to Dinah.  Considering the evidence (i.e. Leah had eight sons and one daughter by Jacob), Diamant's assertion that Jacob may not have been so indifferent to Leah, that he simply favored Rachel for her beauty and youth, seems plausible.  Their relationships are framed with human interaction, thus they are not easily discounted in my mind.

Additionally, if you compare The Red Tent to Genesis 34, as the reading guide suggests, you see how well Diamant parallels events from the Bible in her novel and, more importantly, breathes life into Dinah's story when she has no voice of her own.  She draws a spotlight to events, proposes questions that suggest her novel has an element of plausibility.

For instance, Shalem (named Shechem in the Bible) falls in love with Dinah and intends to marry her.  Diamant proposes a mutual attraction between Dinah and Shalem, which isn't a far-fetched assertion when you read:  "And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and he spake kindly unto the damsel. / And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife" (Genesis 34:3-4).

Although the word "defiled" is thrown about, Shalem loved Dinah and he had ever intention to marry her.  More importantly, he agreed to some very strict stipulations to accomplish this, which certainly proves his commitment to Dinah (Genesis 34:11-24).  Could not Dinah have reciprocated, since her father ultimately agreed?

Furthermore, Diamant's characterizations of Simon and Levi as power-hungry, violent, and temperamental are not far off from the mark.  Simon and Levi murder every man in the city of Shechem and, furthermore, pillage and enslave (Genesis 34:25-31).  They are said to treat Shalem and Hamor deceitfully when negotiating marriage, when deciding upon a truce between the families of Hamor and Jacob (Genesis 34:13).

But what happened to Dinah after she was taken from Shechem?

Diamant may certainly have had resources at her disposal that I do not, which may explain how and why she decides to link Dinah to Egypt; however, I suppose the link could be natural.  If Dinah stayed with her family, she would probably be mentioned again.  Since she isn't found again in Genesis (at least, not as far as I've read), she could have made her way to Egypt.  The journey wouldn't be far, as attested by Joseph's appearance in Egypt, thus Dinah could have made the journey.

I do, however, find it interesting that Dinah meets her brother Joseph after so many years of separation from her family.  I like that Diamant does forge a small link back to Dinah's past and, more importantly, allows Dinah to recognize that her name will be remembered in some context:  "The story of Dinah was too terrible to be forgotten.  As long as the memory of Jacob lived, my name would be remembered.  The past had done its worst to me, and I had nothing to fear of the future."

I realize The Red Tent is a work of fiction.  It isn't meant to stand alone as a religious text, despite its link to the Bible, despite the biblical characters that appear in it; however, I also recognize that Diamant certainly did her research in imagining Dinah's story.  As the reading guide points out, "midrash" - an ancient literary form, which investigates or "searches" for answers outside of the typical range of the Bible - was a critical element:

"Historically, the rabbis used this highly imaginative form of storytelling to make sense of the elliptical nature of the Bible - to explain, for example, why Cain killed Abel.  The compressed stories and images in the Bible are rather like photographs.  They don't tell us everything we want or need to know.  Midrash is the story about what happened before and after the photographic flash."

Diamant, in my opinion, successfully combines biblical knowledge, historical fact, and imaginative fiction to create an intriguing and compelling story.