Identifying Themes in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Themes, symbols, and motifs come alive when you use a storyboard. In this activity, students will identify a theme of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and support it with evidence from the text.

Poverty

Charlie Bucket lives in extreme poverty. Three examples of textual evidence for this theme are:

• The seven members of the Bucket family live in a two-room house, and all the grandparents sleep in one bed
• Charlie only gets one piece of chocolate a year
• The ultimate reward for Charlie is guaranteed food and shelter for him and his family.

Rules

Three examples of textual evidence for this theme are greedy children being punished for not listening to Willie Wonka’s rules:

• Augustus Gloop drinks from the chocolate river and gets shot through the glass tubes
• Miss Violet Beauregarde chews a piece of a gum and turns into a blueberry
• Veruca Salt demands a squirrel and falls into the garbage chute.

Student Instructions

Create a storyboard that identifies themes in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Illustrate instances of each theme and write a short description below each cell.

1. Click "Start Assignment".
2. Identify the theme(s) from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory you wish to include and replace the "Theme 1" text.
3. Create an image for an example that represents this theme.
4. Write a description of each of the examples.