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Veruca Salt (character)

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Veruca Salt
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory character
First appearanceCharlie and the Chocolate Factory
Created byRoald Dahl
Portrayed byJulie Dawn Cole (1971)
Julia Winter (2005)

Veruca Salt is a fictional character and the main antagonist from the Roald Dahl novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the subsequent film adaptations.

Background in all versions

As illustrated in the Movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), Veruca is portrayed as an immature, overindulged, wealthy young girl (in a stereotypical manner) whose affluent parents treat her like a princess and give her anything she wants, no matter how ridiculous the price or how outrageous the item is. In the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), she is described as "the daughter of rich parents" and in her profile on the official 2005 movie website she is described as the "heiress to the Salt nut fortune". Her age is never explicitly given in the book nor the two films, but the theatrical adaptations can allow some creative leeway into the girl's age; similarly, her nationality is given as English in the films but is not given in the book, again leading to creative leeway (see "theatrical adaptations" section below). When Veruca doesn't get what she wants immediately, she screams, shouts, kicks, stomps, jumps up and down, and takes extreme measures until she has her way. Before the tour with her parents to Wonka's chocolate factory, Veruca's parents (especially her father in the films and theatrical adaptations) seem to view her as a sweet, innocent young lady; however, after being ambushed and dirtied in the factory, their opinions shift more toward reality and they act less leniently and more strictly, having learned their lesson about spoiling children. Veruca is always upset when she does not get what she wants. Veruca in the novel is described as blonde but in the film its a very dark brunette.

Veruca in the novel

Veruca, the spoiled and greedy only daughter of the wealthy Henry/Rupert and Angina Salt, regularly exerts loud and petulant behavior in order to get what she desires, and even her parents are not immune to her loud screaming outbursts and tantrums. She shamelessly browbeats her parents over material things. When Veruca demands that she must have a Golden Ticket, her father buys numerous cases of Wonka Bars, and orders his factory workers to put aside their regular duties of peanut-shelling and unwrap the bars, although stopping regular work in his factory would cost him business. The process lasts three days, all of which Veruca spends complaining and screaming that she doesn't have her ticket, and her father vows to keep up the search until he finds one for her. On the fourth day, the ticket is finally found, and Veruca is "all smiles again."

She is the second person to find a Golden Ticket, and the third to leave the tour. Charlie Bucket comments that he doesn't think the father played it fair while his grandmothers say that Veruca is worse than "the fat boy" (Augustus Gloop) and deserves "a good spanking." On the tour, Veruca demands her father get her an Oompa-Loompa, then a chocolate river and pink boat like Wonka's, and finally, the demand that proves her undoing - one of Wonka's nut-sorting squirrels. Unlike the two film adaptations and most of the theatrical shows, Mr. Salt later confesses to Wonka that he knows his daughter is "a bit of a frump," and that he doesn't mind admitting it, yet says that it's no reason for his daughter to be "roasted to a crisp," on the grounds that he and his wife love their daughter very much and just simply want to make her smile.

Veruca in the 1971 film

In the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Veruca hails from England (her nationality was never specified in the novel), and her parents are renamed Henry and Henrietta. Mr. Salt is weak-willed and easily dominated by his spoiled 13-year-old daughter, and Mrs. Salt's attitude is, "Happiness is what counts with children. Happiness and harmony." Veruca complains about her father's staff's inability to find the Golden Ticket "the very first day," and refuses to go to school until the ticket is found. He pleads with her to give him time and that his staff has been working from dawn until dusk for five days straight; Veruca bellows in response, "Make ’em work nights!" In order to expedite the process, Mr. Salt offers a £1 bonus to the first employee who finds the ticket, which happens a few minutes later.

Veruca wants to be the first to enter while waiting with the tour group outside Wonka's factory, during which she is wearing one of her personal collection of four mink coats. She is obnoxious and aggressive, as depicted in the novel, in addition to resorting to threats and even physical violence. She shoves, pushes, and hits her father, and does likewise to Violet Beauregarde while both girls are descending the Chocolate Room stairs in the Pure Imagination number. In fact, there is tangible friction between the two girls throughout. This incident aside, she is not completely indifferent, though not entirely amiable, to the other children; she confides to Charlie, "He [Wonka] is absolutely bonkers!" and expresses concern over Violet and Augustus' separate punishments for disobeying Wonka's orders during the tour.

Veruca's final scene is the Golden Egg Room, where she wants her father to buy her one of Wonka's golden egg-laying geese. After Wonka naturally refuses her father's offer (as he is taking out his wallet/checkbook), Veruca goes on a tirade by breaking into song ("I Want it Now"), trashing the room, and disturbing the Oompa Loompas' work. She then climbs onto an Eggdicator and is promptly dropped down into the furnace holding room after being rejected as a "bad egg" by the machine.

Julie Dawn Cole portrayed Veruca in the film. "I Want it Now" was recorded on Cole's thirteenth birthday, and Veruca's trashing of the Golden Egg Room required a total of 36 takes.

Veruca in the 2005 film

In the 2005 adaptation, Veruca (played by Julia Winter) resides in a palatial mansion in Buckinghamshire, again revealing that Veruca is from England. Her repugnant personality is still intact, but it is expressed in a cold and direct manner rather than aggressive and loud. Only when she is denied something does the spoiled Veruca lose her cool, though she can appear very sweet and charming when she feels things will go her way. Her father does the talking in her interview (though she does spell out her first name to the BBC reporters), and the interview is conducted in one of the mansion's halls. Additionally, her unnamed mother says absolutely nothing. Her father is renamed Rupert, as revealed on one of his business cards. Her many "marvelous pets" are one pony, two dogs, four cats, six rabbits, two parakeets, three canaries, a green parrot, a turtle and a hamster. After Veruca got the ticket, she requested another pony.

Veruca's primary parental figure and factory tour chaperon is once again her father. Even when her indulgent parents satisfy her incessant desires, Veruca lacks any sense of gratitude in return. When Mr. Salt proudly presents to her the long-awaited Golden Ticket that took three days for his staff to find, she seems on the verge of thanking him, but instead says, "Daddy, I want another pony." Meanwhile, her mother sips martinis in lieu of reacting to her daughter's outbursts.

During the tour, she is the first to spot the Oompa Loompas when the group visits the Chocolate Room. After Violet is punished for chewing a prototype gum against Wonka's orders and consequently transformed into a giant blueberry, Mrs. Beauregarde wonders what she'll do with a blueberry for a daughter and how she will compete again. Veruca replies, "You could put her in a county fair."

Veruca's greed finally gets the best of her when she and the others visit the Nut Sorting Room (a spacious room where an army of trained worker squirrels are shelling walnuts). Mr. Salt attempts to purchase a squirrel after Veruca demands one, but Wonka politely refuses, saying that they're not for sale. Refusing to take 'no' for an answer, Veruca then enters the work area to take one for herself (choosing the apparent leader), but is immediately mobbed by all of the squirrels, who soon overpower, restrain and haul her into the garbage chute (a round pit located in the center of the floor), which in turn leads down to an incinerator. Mr. Salt looks down the pit for any sign of her and is soon pushed in screaming from behind. However, since the incinerator is broken at the time, Veruca and her father are spared immolation and instead leave the factory covered in three weeks' worth of refuse. Her final demand is that she wants a flying glass elevator, after seeing Wonka's contraption soaring in the sky above the building, but this time, Mr. Salt, seeing how much he spoiled her these years, refuses to do so, saying that the only thing she's gonna get is a bath. Veruca gets angry at him, but he stares at her back.

Earlier in the film, Veruca cuts in front of Wonka to introduce herself as he leads the tour group through the factory entrance, and Wonka replies, "I always thought a verruca was a type of wart you got on the bottom of your foot." Indeed, the term verruca plantaris is Latin for "plantar wart," and is a common British English phrase. The character's name was conceived from a wart medication called "Veruca Salt" that Dahl claimed he once had in his medicine cabinet.

References