Chapter 1 introduces the Bucket Family, which includes Mr. and Mrs. Bucket, their child Charlie, and both sets of Charlie’s grandparents—Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine, and Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina. The Buckets live in a small, two-bedroom house. The one bed is occupied by the four grandparents; Mr. and Mrs. Bucket and Charlie sleep on mattresses on the floor. They can only afford a basic diet of bread, cabbage, and potatoes. Mr. Bucket works at a factory screwing lids onto toothpaste tubes.

Charlie yearns for chocolate rather than the family’s unsatisfying diet of cabbage, bread, and potatoes. Once a year, on his birthday, Charlie’s family saves enough money to buy him a chocolate bar, which he rations carefully. Charlie’s classmates often munch “greedily” on chocolate bars, which is torturous for him to watch (6). Charlie is also tortured by the delicious smell of chocolate which emanates from the large chocolate factory, Wonka’s Factory, owned by eccentric chocolatier Mr. Willy Wonka. He desperately wishes that he could go inside the mysterious factory—which has been closed for years.