An Appeal for Rationality——From Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Inspect the Edification Function of Fairy Tales

Children's literature is very popular among widespread young readers for its rich imagination and vivid characters. It brings boundless reading pleasure to readers, meanwhile inheriting human common moral wisdom, which is significant to the cultivation of children's correct concept of ethics and morality. As to young readers, Roald Dahl's fairy tale Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a good ethical textbook. It reveals the internal mechanism of children's literature giving full play of edification function to children by portraying five different types of characters, which is beneficial to children's rational maturation. If the capricious or bigoted images like Augustus offer opposite teaching material for children to examine themselves, the rational and bright image Charlie provides an available moral example for children to imitate. At the same time, the Oompa-Loompas use their songs to sum up useful moral experience for children.