For the main character, Charlie sure doesn't do much. Sure, he's the center of the story at the beginning – and again at the end – but for the meat of the book, he's doesn't get a lot of screen...

The first thing we find out about Willy Wonka is that he is the "greatest inventor and maker of chocolates that there has ever been" (1.20). He is defined by his chocolates. And in fact, he seems t...

A Good Old-Fashioned Chocolate LoverGrandpa Joe is ninety-six and a half and still hopping around and chatting his face off. Not your average grandpa, we'd say. He starts the story bed-ridden, but...

I want, I want, I want... that's Veruca's motto. Something tells us she didn't want to be thrown down a garbage chute by a mass of squirrels, but, hey, who knows? From the beginning, Veruca is desc...

Miss Violet Beauregarde likes two things in particular: chewing gum and talking. They don't make for a very good combination (as anyone who's ever tried to chew gum in class might understand). She...

Or should we say, Mike TV? That's mostly all we know about him: he loves television. It's what he talks about from the first second, and he even dresses the part, like a character straight out of a...

Shmoompa-Loompas. Oops, we mean Oompa-Loompas. The name itself is mysterious, and in fact the Oompa-Loompas are quite the mystery themselves. These little guys and gals don't say much, but they sin...

The Beauregardes, unlike their chatty daughter, are quite a quiet couple. In fact, they don't even really make much of a scene until Violet's demise in Chapter 21. But let's start at the beginning....

These parents are just as ridiculous as their name. When we first meet Mrs. Gloop, she's explaining that she wasn't at all surprised her son found a Golden Ticket because "He eats so many bars of c...

Have you ever heard of something called a peanut gallery? These three grandparents sure fit the bill. They interrupt a lot, make all kinds of comments, and even talk in unison sometimes. They're es...

Gee, do you think Dahl wants us to know that this guy's fat? Just in case we're sleeping as we read, he makes sure to use the word "fat" seven times in his description of the shopkeeper (Chapter 11...

Prince Pondicherry, Grandpa Joe tells us, was an Indian prince who once asked Willy Wonka to build an entire palace with only chocolate. While this is fantastic in and of itself, what's really amaz...