Madagascar and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie Bucket is a floating signifier living "on the edge of a great town" , of starvation, of childhood, and by the end of the story, on the edge of his social class (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 1964. 13). Charlie is a willing participant in a capitalist competition, and against the laws of probability, a single "damp and dirty" (46) 50p throws him into the path of potential corruption. "Dirty" (46) money changes the dynamics which have framed the Buckets social composition, and Roald Dahl's narrative leaves the reader poised to ponder how Charlie will manage the capitalist transformation into which he is about to catapult his family. Exercising the force of his dictatorship, Mr Wonka appropriates the home and intentions of the Bucket household, coercing the beguiled Charlie and Grandpa Joe, to push "three old people who were still petrified with fear" into a world of global capitalism. In the words of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels'  "The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation" (Communist Manifesto 1848). Furthermore, 

"The whole world seemed suddenly to be caught up in a mad chocolate-buying spree...In one city, a famous gangster robbed a bank of a thousand pounds and spent the whole lot on Wonka bars" (30).

Mr Wonka obscures behind "frosted glass windows" (25), the cultural and ethical truth concerning the identity of the Oompaloopas; appropriating first the natural resource of Loompaland, then enslaving the natives: "I shipped them all over here, every man woman and child in the Oompa-Loompa tribe. It was easy, I smuggled them over in large packing cases" (68). Occasionally, Wonka's personal 'mask of anarchy' slips, betraying his questionable morality (Romanticism an Anthology, 2000, Percy Bysshe Shelley 1819). 

Accept "the present" of  Wonka's chocolate empire and submit to being 'groomed', or try and see through Wonka's opaque dictatorship, especially for the sake of the Oompa-Loompas (130); this is Charlie Bucket's philanthropical dilemma....

....44 years later on an island in the Indian Ocean....

....Madagascar provides the backdrop for the development of Madecasse, brainchild of Tim McCollum and Brett Beach, former Peace Corps volunteers on the island. Initiated in 2008, Madecasse aims to create a chocolate factory at the capital city of Antananarivo:

 The chocolate is processed in Madagascar and all the packaging and ingredients are sourced locally, creating four times more prosperity for the local people (Madecasse 2008).

Madecasse aims to "keep more economic benefit within the island nation". Their achievements have earned Madecasse a position in 'The World's Top 50 Most Innovative Companies' ("The Fast Company" Magazine, March, 2011, p118). The philanthropic intention of Madecasse is to "strike at the root cause of poverty" in Madagascar (Madecasse, Executive Summary, February 2014, p1), by respecting and complying with ethical standards of business development.

Bibliography

Dahl, R.                         Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.   Great Britain: Puffin Books,1973.

www.madecasse.com  Madecasse: "Executive Summary", February, 2014.

Marx, K. And F. Engels. “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, Selected Works.Vol.1,                                                             Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, pp 98-137.
Wu, D.                                Romanticism: an anthology 2nd Edition.   Oxford: Blackwell,                                                       2000.
www.fastcompany.com    "The Fast Company", 2011.