Matilda
by Roald Dahl
illustrated by Quentin Blake
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Puffin (New York): 1998. Trade paperback: 240 pages. ISBN-10: 0-14-130106-6 Suggested retail price: $6.99 (US) Tags: child abuse; child prodigies; made into movie; magic powers; telekinesis; Youth Tactical strength: [7/10] |
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Somehow, I have never read a Roald Dahl book before now. I have seen the movies Witches, James and the Giant Peach, and both versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. From these movies, I got a pretty good idea what to expect from a Roald Dahl work -- an underdog child main character, often in an oppressive or abusive home, who through strength of character foils an adult nemesis and ends up outside the oppressive situation.
Matilda follows this same formula. Matilda lives with parents who couldn't care less about their children. Her father runs a dishonest used-car business, and her mother attends bingo games every afternoon. Matilda learns to read at a very early age, and before she has every attended school, she has read numerous works from classic literature -- Dickens her particular favorite. Whenever Matilda feels her parents have been particularly horrid to her, she uses her great intellect to come up with a suitable revenge, such as putting superglue in her father's hat.
Once Matilda starts school, she has a nice teacher, but the headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, creates an oppressive environment for the entire school. At one point, "the Trunchbull" grabs a girl by her pigtails and throws her like on Olympic hammer. As Matilda watches Miss Trunchbull's excesses, she starts to develop telekinetic powers. At first, Matilda only tips a glass of water on Miss Trunchbull, but she then puts her mind to work on a plan to put the headmistress completely in her place.
In many stories, the main characters achieve satisfaction entirely through karma. We see the bad guy doing evil things, the good guy displays only positive character traits, and in the end, the good guy triumphs, usually at the expense of the bad guy. In Matilda, Dahl's protagonist does display positive traits -- she never considers using her abilities to harm someone just out of spite or malice. But unlike many stories that show that anyone can have karmic success, Dahl makes Matilda inordinately smart, thus she succeeds as a result of her natural gifts, not just as a result of persistence or good deeds.
From having seen previews of the TriStar Pictures version of Matilda, I knew that Matilda developed telekinetic abilities, so it surprised me to find Dahl didn't develop these abilities until the last half of the book. When I realized that the powers weren't permanent, I understood that Dahl meant the powers as a natural extension of Matilda's abilities while under extreme stress and not as the main plot point of the story.
S P O I L E R A L E R T
Since clearly the powers don't work as the central point of the story, we have to look at other aspects of the story to look for the principle idea. Dahl presents a story about child abuse victims who overcome their abusers. Matilda doesn't suffer physical abuse, but her parents demonstrate enormous neglect and mental abuse. Miss Holly, Matilda's teacher, suffers from both physical and mental abuses at the hands of Miss Trunchbull. In the end, Matilda frees both of them from their abusers, and they do seem to live happily ever after.
Dahl does seem to support the idea that victims of abuse need extraordinary abilities or intervention to overcome the abuse. Matilda has exceptional mental abilities, and uses those abilities to overcome Miss Trunchbull. Some victims, like Miss Holly, cannot make a change for themselves. Instead, when the victim has suffered such enormous abuse, the victim needs an intermediary to remedy the situation. In fact, most of the children in the school, including Matilda, silently suffer Miss Trunchbull's abuses without every telling their parents. Clearly we want our children to come forward when receiving abuse, so although Dahl's Matilda doesn't present the best example of dealing with abuse, perhaps it can serve as a good talking point.
