The witches

Roald Dahl quote.

Roald Dahl quote.

Roald Dahl's name is synonymous with literary and commercial success, as well as immortal works and major controversies. One of the Welsh author's creations that brings together all these characteristics is The witches (1983). It is a text of children's literature with shades of dark fantasy, as much praised as vilified from the moment of its release.

The voices against The Witches -original title in English- point to a misogynistic approach and an ending that can incite suicide. It's more, the book is still banned from some British and American libraries. On the other hand, this book ranks 81st among the best children's novels in history according to the School Library Journal from USA

Analysis of The witches

Characters

Main courses

  • Luke, an English boy from he was orphaned seven years after the death of his parents in a car accident
  • Luke's grandmotherWho has knowledge essential about witches.

Complementary

  • The women of the "Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children."
  • The Grand High Witch, the most feared sorceress and evil of the world.
  • Bruno Jenkins, a boy who is transformed into a mouse by the Grand High Witch and ends up being Luke's ally and the protagonist's grandmother.
  • Bruno's parents; particularly, Mrs. Jenkins who suffers from a fear of mice.
  • The diners at the hotel party.

Argument

Luke's grandmother tells her grandson that witches are real and details which are the most used signals to identify them. These evil entities they don't have the spooky look of fairy talesOn the contrary, they are beautiful, apparently normal women. In fact, English witches run the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

The real objective of the association of witches is to find more affective techniques for the annihilation of infants. To achieve its goal, the aforementioned group of witches annually organizes a party at a lavish Bournemouth hotel. So the core of the story describes how Luke sets out to stop the villains from turning everyone at the gala into mice.

narration and style

the book is found narrated in the first person with concise language appropriate to each character. At the same time, the succession of scares turn reading into a quite captivating "cocktail" for readers. For these reasons, the author manages to convey a sense of veracity in the reported events, which can be classified into three well-differentiated groups of sequences.

Parts of the novel and settings

The first third of the text comprises Luke's stay in Norway under the care of his grandmother. The second section shows the boy with his grandmother during your summer vacation at the Grand Hotel in Bournemouth, England. There, they discover that the women staying at the hostel are undercover witches.

Meanwhile, the perverse females They discover Luke and transform him into a mouse.. Later, the third part of the book recounts how the rodent-child manages to frustrate the magicians' plans when he gets them to try their own "mouse-maker". Finally, the protagonist and his grandmother return to the Nordic territories, where they promise to eradicate all the witches on the planet.

A highly controversial children's novel

The exposure of the attractive women presented in the text as evil witches It is not exactly a source of inspiration for the feminist cause. Actually, this approach is the main evidence of the staunchest critics of the novel, who claim that it "teaches boys to hate women."

Another much discussed aspect is the end of the book. The reason: Grandma reveals to Luke that in his rodent form he will hardly live a decade. However, he doesn't care because, due to the old woman's advanced age (86), she probably won't live more than nine years either. Therefore, critics see a covert message of suicide as a way to keep from growing up.

About the author, Roald Dahl

Son of Harald Dahl and Sofie M. Hesselberg (both Norwegian nationals), Roald Dahl was born on September 13, 1916, in Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales. When the future writer was only a few years old, he lost his sister and his father. However, the mother decided to remain in British territory (instead of returning to her native country), since Mr. Harald's wish was to educate his children there.

Roald Dahl.

Roald Dahl.

During his adolescence, Roald He studied at Repton College in Derbyshire, where he excelled in various extracurricular and sports activities. In addition, the students of said school received free chocolates from a nearby factory for them to try. Evidently, this event inspired him to write Charlie and the chocolate factory (1964), his most famous book.

A youth full of travel and adventures

Young Dahl was a frequent traveler, spending most of his summer vacations with his Norwegian family and exploring Newfoundland after high school. In 1934, he joined the Royal Dutch Shell company; two years later he was sent to Dar-es-Salaam. In Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania), he encountered wild animals while doing fuel supply duties.

After the outbreak of World War II, Dahl was admitted to the Royal Air Force.. Thanks to this, she was able to appreciate the vast horizons of the African landscapes during some reconnaissance flights. Although he was not ordered into combat at the time, he did have an accident in Libya (September 1940) due to a misplacement and was shot down by Italian forces.

Early writings

After being rescued from the desert and spending five months in hospital, Dahl transferred to the British Expeditionary Force's 80th Squadron. In mid-1941 he was ordered to bombard a fleet of ships at Chalcis, Greece. in a clear disadvantage, as he faced six enemy planes alone with his Hurricane. These events appear in the autobiographical text Flying alone (1986)

His first written publication was Easy peasy (1942) a story about his plane crash in North Africa that appeared in the Saturday evening post of Washington. At the time, Dahl was already serving as deputy air attaché in the US capital. In North American territory he met who his wife was y entre 1953 1983, the actress Patricia Neal, with whom had five children.

Literary career

From 1943 and until his death on November 23, 1990 (due to leukemia), Roald Dahl released nearly 50 written publications. The majority (and the best known) of his literary creations were prose for children (17 in total). Additionally, the Welsh writer stood out with his children's poetry, fiction novels, story anthologies, memoirs and scripts for film and television.

Some of his children's books adapted to the cinema in recent times

  • James and the Giant Peach (Walt Disney Pictures, 1996)
  • Matilda (TriStar Pictures and Jersey Films, 1996)
  • Charlie and the chocolate factory (Village Roadshow Pictures, 2005)
  • The fantastic Mr. Fox (20thCentury Fox, 2009)
  • The witches (Esperanto Filmoj and Image Movers, 2020).

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