Summary
Chapter 1: Mr. Wonka Goes Too Far
Charlie is now the owner of the incredible Chocolate Factory. He, Willy Wonka, his parents, and his two sets of grandparents are inside the Great Glass Elevator. Grandpa George, Grandma Georgina, and Grandma Josephine are in their bed.
Up in the sky, everyone is having a wonderful time and marveling at how the Elevator is in the air. Both of the Grandmas, though, think Wonka is a bit strange. Charlie tells them that Wonka is fantastic and his friend.
Wonka announces that there is a lot to do and they must hurry back to the factory. They have to go up, though, to get back down. Grandma Josephine grumbles that Wonka is cracked.
The Elevator shoots high into the air. The wind whooshes loudly and shrilly, and even though some of the grandparents are upset, Wonka says they must do this because they have to be going at a tremendous speed when they come down.
Grandma Josephine screams and Grandma Georgina clutches Grandpa George. Mr. and Mrs. Bucket cling to each other. Even Charlie is nervous but Wonka explains that they need to break a hole.
The Elevator rises higher. They can see the countries below and the earth spread out like a map, and even though it is beautiful, it is terrifying. Charlie grips Grandpa Joe’s hand. Wonka warns them that no one can talk to him right now because they have to concentrate and he has to press the green button at the right time. Grandma Josephine calls him a maniac and grabs him, but Wonka pulls himself free and says he has to press the button or they will go too high.
Wonka has Charlie push the button but moans that it is too late. All of them begin floating in the air like balloons. Wonka screeches that they have gone into orbit. Everyone gasps. Wonka presses the “oxygen” button so they can breathe.
The bed floats up and the old ones try frantically to get back into it. Grandpa Joe laughs that they are finally out of bed but Josephine snaps at him.
Chapter 2: Space Hotel “U.S.A.”
Two days prior to the Elevator’s ascension into space, the United States had launched the Space Hotel, a marvelous and luxurious hotel that was fully air-conditioned and had a gravity-making machine. There was nobody on board yet, but the Space Hotel was in orbit now and there was a tremendous push to send up the first guests. There was going to be a great rush of illustrious people, but there needed to be an entire staff to take care of them.
The large Commuter Capsule containing bellhops, maids, managers, etc. is orbiting the Earth, manned by three astronauts: Shuckworth, Shanks, and Showler. The astronauts tell the people that they are about to see their new home, but everyone looks outside and is confused at what they see. Shuckworth grabs a telescope and yells to Ground Control that there is a strange spaceship up there and it doesn’t look like they are astronauts because the people are wearing nightshirts.
Ground Control is incredulous, but Shuckworth presses his case. Shanks jumps in but Ground Control screams back that they are crazy. It then cries out that the spaceship must be going to blow up the Space Hotel.
A new voice comes on and announces itself as the President of the United States. Shanks is dubious but realizes it is truly the man himself. The President asks about the people and the glass capsule; he snaps that Shanks must be loopy. Showler jumps on and confirms what the other said, but the President angrily exclaims that it must be a bomb disguised as a bed going to blow up the Space Hotel.
The President demands silence to think. Everyone on the Commuter Capsule waits with bated breath. The President asks for a television camera to point at the ship so they can get a look at it. Showler quickly procures the camera, points it, and five million people who’d been listening to this historic event on the radio rush to their televisions.
What people see is this: a weird glass box in orbit with seven adults and one child and a large bed. Beyond that is the Space Hotel. Everyone assumes that the people in the box are such powerful astronauts that they do not even need spacesuits. They wonder what the evil-looking bed is.
Fear spreads throughout the rest of the world as they tune in to what is happening. The President barks at Showler to keep clear of them.
Chapter 3: The Link-Up
Inside the Great Glass Elevator is much consternation. The whole world knows about the Space Hotel and the Commuter Capsule, so naturally, the travelers do as well. Charlie insists they must see the Capsule link to the Hotel. Wonka floats by and whispers that they ought to go see the Space Hotel by themselves first. Charlie gulps and is skeptical, but Wonka insists his Elevator can do it.
The old ones are upset and hesitant, but Wonka plows ahead. He tells Grandpa Joe and Charlie what buttons to push. Charlie cannot quite get there, so Wonka shows him how to take a breath and blow to propel himself around. All of the people in the Elevator begin doing that, and on Earth, the people watching think they must be crazy.
Showler calls to the President over the radio that it looks like a war dance; the President bursts out that they must be Indians.
The old ones settle down and Wonka gives the orders to Grandpa Joe and Charlie. The Elevator hovers below the Space Hotel and Charlie thinks to himself how excited he is.
Chapter 4: The President
The three astronauts have their camera trained on the Elevator. Millions of people watch. In his study, President Lancelot R. Gilligrass sits with his advisers and department heads and military Chiefs of Staff. Miss Tibbs, an eighty-nine-year-old woman who used to be the President’s nurse, is the Vice President now. She is the real power behind the throne. Only the President is allowed to call her "Nanny." The President’s cat, Mrs. Taubsypuss, is also there.
The room is silent and the President screams that they are going to link up. The Army Chief wants to blow them up. The President calls for the Chief Spy and demands for information. The Chief Spy suggests some other hotel owner is jealous of the Space Hotel--maybe Mr. Hilton. The President thinks this could be true, but also that it could be the Russians. He calls the direct line to the Premier, who answers and tells the President it is not Russians. Mrs. Tibbs whispers that he is lying.
The Premier tells the President that the people inside the box look Chinese. The President slams the phone down and calls the Head of the Chinese Republic in Peking. He keeps calling the wrong number, though, and the Postmaster General tells him that it is hard to call people in China since they all have the last name of Wing or Wong. He finally gets through to Assistant-Premier Chu-On-Dat and demands to speak to Premier How-Yu-Bin.
The President becomes frustrated when Chu-On-Dat tells him How-Yu-Bin is unavailable. The Chief of the Army suggests blowing the Elevator up again. The Chief Financial adviser brags that he’s finally balanced the budget, and shows off the book balancing on his head.
Shuckworth’s voice comes through announcing that they’ve linked up. The President breathes in deeply and swallows a fly. Miss Tibbs has to pound his back. Annoyed, he decides to make up one of his amazing inventions--this time, to capture flies. Everyone praises him.
Millions of people watch the Elevator link up; “it looked like some tiny baby animal clinging to its mother” (34). The camera zooms closer, and the box is empty.
Chapter 5:
Men From Mars Wonka, Charlie, Mr. and Mrs. Bucket, and Grandpa Joe walk out of the Great Glass Elevator into the Space Hotel’s lobby. It is extremely opulent and stunning. No one speaks, though, knowing that Space Control could hear them.
Charlie is a bit nervous, knowing that they’ve broken into “the greatest machine ever built by man, the property of the United States Government” (35). He worries that they could go to jail… or worse.
They plan to find some food, but a voice interrupts them. It booms that they are trespassing and are ordered to identify themselves. They say nothing. The voice becomes angrier.
People around the world listen, but there is no camera inside. As the voice becomes even angrier, Charlie and his family clutch each other in terror. Wonka does nothing.
The voice shouts that it will consider them dangerous enemies and drop the temperature in the Space Hotel to deep-freeze them. Mr. Wonka still does nothing, and Grandpa Joe and Charlie beg him with their eyes to help.
Finally, Wonka bursts out with nonsense words over and over again. The voice is silent as he yells dramatically. The effect around the world is electric, with people thrilling to the marrow with this horrible, strange, mystic voice. No one knows what language it is.
Everyone in the President’s room is a bit unnerved. The President moans to his Nanny and she says she will get him some milk. She also summons the Chief Interpreter, but he says he has never heard the language before. He says it is not of this world, which boggles the mind of the President. Since the words “Venus” and “Mars” were part of Wonka’s odd speech, they assume they must be from Mars. Miss Tibbs counsels prudence, as they do not want to be invaded by Martians.
Analysis
Roald Dahl’s sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory begins in medias res, or in the middle of the action. The Elevator is high in the air with a jubilant Charlie, the ever-ambiguous Wonka, a set of parents, and two sets of grandparents surveying the world below. Though it is unlikely a reader would come to this work without having read the prior one, the novel doesn’t necessarily require it. There are entirely new adventures, predicaments, and absurdities, and as Charlie’s character was barely fleshed out in the first book, it doesn’t matter that there is little more to him here. Indeed, the novel is less tightly structured and unified than its predecessor; as New York Times reviewer Julia Whedonsept wrote, “[it is] very easy fantasy, not very intensely developed…[it is] just a string of random jokes and adventures held together by the enviable British glibness of style--punning and colloquial--that sounds as if it must be good, even if it’s all manner, without substance.”
If there is one person with whom the reader should probably be acquainted with prior to coming to this book, it is Willy Wonka. Wonka is an enigma, someone who doesn’t love children but devotes his life to manufacturing what children desire most. He is jubilant, then severe. He risks the lives of those around him just to see what will happen. He deliberately obfuscates his motives sometimes seems, frankly, unhinged. It is often difficult to know if he is telling the truth. He is, in short, an adult more like a child--and therefore an appealing figure to a child used to dealing with curmudgeonly, dull adults.
It is adults who usually do not care for Dahl’s books, as critic Margaret Talbot notes. There is persistent bathroom humor, later apparent in the Goldie Pinklesweet story, and the “waspish tone –unsentimental, ever so slightly sadistic, and archly amusing.” Adults are also the ones who get their comeuppance in Dahl’s tale; in Great Glass Elevator, the rude and cantankerous grandparents are reduced to squawking children. The children “in Dahl’s books are usually sensible, mature, and unflappable” and often “triumph over adults” in the novels that are essentially “complex narratives of wish fulfillment.” Charlie is appropriately, but not excessively, excited about his adventures and concerned when something dangerous appears. He is the one who insists that the Elevator rescue those in the Commuter Capsule, and who worries that they are doing something wrong when they enter the Space Hotel without permission.
One of the strangest elements of the text is the fact that while much of the action seems improbable and unbound by recognizable time and space, Dahl makes one of the central characters the President of the United States. However, the President and the others around him are buffoonish caricatures, and though they are ostensibly a collection of the most powerful people in the world, they seem stupider than the Vermicious Knids. The President is a hilarious example of the worst kind of adult: petulant, self-absorbed, vested with a tremendous amount of power though, he is dangerously unintelligent. Sycophantic advisers and government officials surround him, and the only figure with any real power is his former Nanny. Though some young readers may not pick up on the satire, Dahl is effectively satirizing government leaders and the fact that a world leader’s ignorance or need to prove themselves may result in political decisions with real import. After all, this is the Cold War era, and the President thinks that the U.S.S.R. or China is behind this, making him ready to go on a rampage.
One final note: this is the 1970s, and Dahl engages in casual but nonetheless disturbing racism in the way he discusses the Chinese and their names. The comment that “all their names sound the same” and the creation of absurd names that pun on English words may be seen as offensive and reductive.
