Willy Wonka
Wonka is a chocolatier, and one of Dahl’s most famous characters. Wonka is exceedingly eccentric, with many odd qualities. Wonka confuses most of the people who meet him, but Charlie is fascinated. Wonka loves nonsense and mischief, but can’t abide ugliness. Wonka is described as full of life. In the book, Wonka has a goatee and bright, mischievous eyes. Wonka is fantastically bizarre, and remembered as one of Dahl’s most famous characters. He is also well traveled, having been to space. Wonka also visited Loompa Land, which was where he met the mysterious Oompa Loompas.
Charlie Bucket
Charlie is the titular character and the protagonist of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Charlie is the last one to find a Golden Ticket. He is very kind and brave, but also extremely poor. He lives with his mother, his father, and his four bed-ridden grandparents. Charlie, being poor, doesn’t get much food, which makes living near a chocolate factory hard. He also loves chocolate. Unlike the other contestants who find a Golden Ticket, Charlie is generous and selfless. He is the only one who would have been fit to run the factory. Even when he drank the Fizzy Lifting Drink, he admitted it and apologized, in a situation where lesser children might have lied and not owned up to their misdeeds. At the end of the story, Wonka bequeaths the factory to Charlie, as a reward for his good heart. His whole family is allowed to come with him.
Oompa-Loompas
Oompa-Loompas are creatures from Loompa Land. They are the only workers in Wonka’s chocolate factory. Wonka discovered them when he traveled to Loompa Land. In Loompa Land, the Oompa-Loompas were in constant danger from many different predators. Wonka offered them jobs. They are paid in cocoa beans, which are their favorite food, and were in short supply on the island. Before publication, they were named ‘Whipple-Scrumpets’. They are as mischievous as Wonka. As each child exits, they sing a song about the child’s bad deeds to serve as a moral lesson. In the text, Oompa-Loompas insist on wearing the same clothing that they wore in Loompa Land. They are described as small people with long hair.
Grandpa Joe
Grandpa Joe is Charlie’s grandfather, Mr. Bucket’s father. He is the oldest of the grandparents, with his age put at 96 and a half. He tells Charlie many stories about Wonka’s factory and his secret worker, as he shares the same love of Wonka chocolate that Charlie does. Joe is married to Grandma Josephine. He loves to tell stories and very optimistic. In fact, he is the one who gives Charlie the money to buy another chocolate bar. In the beginning of the story, Grandpa Joe hasn’t been out of bed in years, but when it is revealed that Charlie has won a Golden Ticket, he leaps out of bed with the energy of a man a quarter of his age. As such, Grandpa Joe is the one who accompanies Charlie to the factory.
Augustus Gloop
Gloop is incredibly greedy and the first child to find a Golden Ticket. He is also the first child to fail Wonka’s tests. Gloop eats an extraordinary amount of chocolate, so much that his mother says it would have been impossible for him not to have eventually found a Golden Ticket. While his origin is unknown in the book, he tends to be thought of as German, since he is from Germany in both movies. His mother seems to delight in her son’s gluttonous habits and encourages them. Augustus leaves the factory when he drinks from the chocolate river, and falls in, getting sucked up a pipe and sent to the Fudge Room.
Veruca Salt
Veruca is very spoiled. She is the second person to find a Golden Ticket, and the third to leave Wonka’s factory. She has very little familial respect and is a brat to everyone. Veruca also doesn’t care about other’s property. She frequently bullies her parents into getting things for her. She is sent away when she interferes with the squirrels that Wonka trains to choose nuts for his chocolate bars. Veruca yells at her father to buy her some of the squirrels. She is judged as a ‘bad nut’ and sent down the garbage shaft.
Violet Beauregarde
Violet is a girl who can never stop chewing gum. She is the third child to find a Golden Ticket and the second to be ejected from Wonka’s factory. Violet is always chewing something and claims that she has been chewing the same piece of gum for three months straight. She is also very competitive and has won many gum chewing competitions. In most adaptations, she is American. While in the factory, she eats an experimental piece of gum. The gum turns her into a human blueberry, and she is rolled away to have the juice squeezed out of her.
Mike Teavee
Mike, who loves to watch television, finds the fourth Golden Ticket. He is also the last one to be ejected from the factory. Most adaptations place him as being from America. Mike loves TV and electronics much more than he likes people. In the novel, he loves only TV. In the 2005 movie he is obsessed with video games. Mike leaves the factory after he tries to teleport. During this process he is shrunk to a fraction of his former size. He is taken away by the Oompa Loompas to go to the taffy stretching room.
Mr. Bucket
Mr. Bucket, Charlie's father, works in a toothpaste factory screwing caps onto tubes of toothpaste. Though his job is modest, he works extremely hard and cares deeply about his family.
Mrs. Bucket
Mrs. Bucket, Charlie's mother, keeps the household running while Mr. Bucket works long hours at the factory. She takes good care of all four frail grandparents, and she is a loving mother to Charlie.
Grandma Josephine
Grandma Josephine is one of Charlie's four grandparents, married to Grandpa Joe. She is the mother of Mr. Bucket.
Grandpa George
Grandpa George is another of Charlie's grandparents, married to Grandma Georgina. He is the father of Mrs. Bucket.
Grandma Georgina
Grandma Georgina is another of Charlie's grandparents, married to Grandpa George. He is the mother of Mrs. Bucket.
Cornelia Prinzmetel
Violet Beauregarde's best friend.
Slugworth
One of the chocolate makers who constantly tries to steal Wonka's recipes.
Mr. and Mrs. Salt
Veruca's parents, who constantly indulge her, spoil her, and give her anything she wants. Because of this, they are pushed down the garbage chute with her.
Mr. and Mrs. Gloop
Augustus Gloop's parents, who believe that his constant overeating is only because of his lacking certain vitamins and nutrients.
Mr. and Mrs. Beauregarde
Violet's parents, who, just like Violet, are concerned primarily with seeing their daughter be the best at everything.
Mr. and Mrs. Teavee
Mike's parents, who let Mike watch as much TV as he wants.
