B. The Cause of Willy Wonka’s Traumatic Experience
People who have a bad experience might have a chance to have traumatic experience. Sigmund Freud and J. Breuer in Studies on Hysteria.The Standard
Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud said: In traumatic neuroses the operative cause of the illness is not the trifling
physical injury but the affect of fright the physical trauma. Any experience which calls up distressing affect such as those fright, anxiety, shame or
physical pain may operate as trauma of this kind ” Freud, Joseph
Breuer,2001:8. When trauma comes to people who has experienced dangerous event, it makes
their nerves system over-stimulate and make an unbearable fear or threat. From Willy Wonka
’s case, he faces an enormous event that changes his life. Willy Wonka is a successful entrepreneur in chocolate industry. He takes
control of chocolate industry as Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine says: ‘Did you know, for example, that he has himself invented more than two
hundred new kinds of chocolate bars, each with a different centre, each far sweeter and creamier and more delicious than anything the other chocolate
factories can make Perfectly true cried Grandma Josephine. And he sends them to all the
four corners of the earth Isnt that so, Grandpa Joe? It is, my dear, it is. And to all the kings and presidents of the world as
well
… Dahl, 1964:8 He can manage to sell all of his products to the four corners of earth, which means
he is a very successful entrepreneur. Everyone looks for his inventions, not only ordinary people who wants to eat his sweets but also kings and presidents from all
over the world. Prince Pondicherry the prince of India, for example, acknowledges his wonderful idea of sweets. He sends Mr. Wonka a letter to build him a colossal
palace made of chocolate and Mr. Wonka makes it. As a successful entrepreneur he also gains a lot of rivals in this industry.
Wonka’s chocolate factory is the biggest sweets factory in the town. It produces thousands of sweet everyday and delivers them around the world. As a
big company, it needs so many workers to do the jobs. Wonka’s chocolate factory
has thousands of worker in the factory, like Grandpa Joe says when he talked to Charlie “ You see, Charlie’ he said, ‘not very long ago there used to be thousands
of people working in Mr. Willy Wonka’s factory” Dahl,1964:14. People in the towns used to work for him to make sweets and see the process of how it works.
He trusts other people or strangers to work in his factory. He opens himself to other people. Because of his success history, other sweets companies start to grow
jealous upon him. Other sweets factories in the town are jealous of
Wonka’s success. They are jealous because Wonka can make enormous inventions of sweets.
And, by a most secret method, he can make lovely blue birds eggs with black spots on them, and when you put one of these in your mouth, it
gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little pink sugary baby bird sitting on the tip of your tongue.
and when you put one of these in your mouth, it gradually gets smaller and smaller until suddenly there is nothing left except a tiny little pink sugary
baby bird sitting on the tip of your tongueDahl,1964:9.
From the statement of Grandpa Joe above, the inventions seems magical and only
Willy Wonka knows how to make it. Other sweets factories think that they might not be able to catch up with Wonka’s inventions starts to grow jealous upon Mr.
Wonka. By using the workers of Willy Wonka’s factory, they sent their spies to
get Wonka’s secret recipes “Yes. All the other chocolate makers, you see, had begun to grow jealous of the wonderful sweets that Mr. Wonka was making, and
they started sending in spies to steal his secret recipes ” Dahl, 1946:14.Grandpa
Joe says that he i s the worker in Wonka’s factory. This plan goes smooth for the
rival. His rivals start to attack Wonka’s business from the inside. They know
Wonka’s secret recipes. They begin to produce the recipes as soon as they got it. People start to buy the sweets from them and they start to catch up with sweet
factory. This event shows the point when Willy Wonka feel less comfortable with people.
Willy Wonka is depressed at that time. His trust on his workers begins to fade away. He fires all of his workers, not a single person that he keeps to work in
his factory.
And Mr Willy Wonka tore his beard and shouted, This is terrible I shall be ruined There are spies everywhere I shall have to close the factory
But he didnt do that Charlie said.Oh, yes he did. He told all the workers that he was sorry, but they would have to go home. Then, he shut the main
gates and fastened them with a chain. Even Mr Willy Wonka himself disappeared completely Dahl, 1964:14-15.
Willy Wonka cannot handle the situation and close himself from the world. His
factory does not work for a period of time. His business becomes a mess and people begin to think his career is over.
This event has a great impact on Willy Wonka’s life. He is at the top of his
career and people begin to try to knock him down from his position. He experiences a dangerous situation because of this event. He does not encounter
physical abuse, but psychological abuse. Trauma does not happen only because of people being hurt physically but also mentally. In Wonka’s case, he is abused
psychologically by being betrayed by his workers. Wonka’s mind cannot accept
the reality for being betrayed. He does not think that people who he is believed in
began to work against him. His trust toward people has been abused by the spies. It is normal for a person who believed in others, get hurt when people lied to them.
Because of this, Wonka’s mind interprets the event as threat for his life. It becomes dangerous because the betrayal starts to harm his business.
Willy Wonka ’s psychological condition is at the first state of Trauma. His
mind starts to interpret the event that he faces as traumatic experience. In Wonka’s
case the traumatic experience is betrayal. The event when his workers start to betray him and steal something important for him becomes a trigger on his mental
stability. Betrayal is one kind of Interpersonal Trauma. Interpersonal means, traumatic event which involve other people as the cause of hisher traumatic
memory. Wonka ’s traumatic experience involves other people in it. The people
who involves in Wonka’s traumatic experience are his workers. Every time he
encounters other human being, his mind starts the alarm and tries to protect itself from getting hurt.
Wonka’s interpersonal trauma is made by people whom he trusts in and they beco
me the cause of Wonka’s trauma. After he knows he is betrayed by his workers
, Wonka’s mind starts to react more intense toward this event. His psychological condition at this point is on Trauma section. His mind starts to react
toward the event by releasing his spontaneous anger. This reaction comes from comment in the novel “And Mr. Willy Wonka tore his beard and shouted. ‘This is
terrible I shall be ruined There are spies everywhere I shall have to close the factory” Dahl, 1964:14. He is angry at the time; by looking the punctuation
mark that Dahl used to express Wonka’s feeling. Exclamation marks are used
every time Wonka’s ending his sentences to show the feeling of Willy Wonka at the time he knows he is betrayed. His mind begins to build its defense to protect
Wonka’s psychological condition. The betrayal has been interpreted in Wonka’s unconscious mind as something that could disturb his mental condition. The
betrayal i s the source of Wonka’s traumatic experience and people becomes the
trigger of his trauma. People can be the trigger because Willy Wonka is experiencing interpersonal trauma, the trauma that involves other people in it. This
moment is the time when the betrayal begins to make Wonka afraid to face other people.
Willy Wonka’s mind starts building anxiety. His unconscious mind makes betrayal experience as triggered to his trauma. Whenever Willy Wonka has to face
other people, this memory comes out of his mind.
C. The Influence of Wonka’s Traumatic Experience to His Personality
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