The World of Roald Dahl
A Study of the children’s author controversial elements
Roald Dahl is accused of many things; misogynist, antisemitic, and overall an intolerant and unpleasant man. Despite all that, we can still see that his works keep captivating children all over the world with indisputable classics titles such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “Matilda” and “James and The Giant Peach”.
Even with all the already existing film adaptations of his works, it is inevitable to feel the rise of a new generation of remakes, as is the case with the most recent version of “The Witches” by Robert Zemeckis.
But if he was so terrible, then how is that he keeps being able to sell more than 200 million copies to libraries worldwide? And how is that a lot of his books can still be considered between the most popular among ages seven thought to nine?
The adult critics
Dahl has never been far from controversy, since the publication of “James and the Giant Peach” his first children’s book, has received criticism from parents, editors, and even several censorship attempts. It was published in the United States in 1961 but wasn’t shown to British audiences until 1967.
As an author, he received an immense amount of criticism from parents’ associations. His literary style has been described as vulgar, violent, and promoting disobedience to kids.
While it is easy to dismiss such acclaims as an exaggeration on the part of hysterical parents, certainly a careful reader will not be able to avoid feeling some discomfort while finding some problematic elements in his books.
Like, the absurd and colonialist representation of the Oompa-Loompas as a tribal society happy to live under a slave system or the insistence on using fat, deformed, cruel and stupid women as the regular antagonists in his plots.
The style of his work
In Dahl’s world, there are no shades of gray. His characters are caricatures, and the humor is very inclined to flatulence or physical punishment, but this is nothing more than narrative devices to provide a younger reader with a type of catharsis by the end of the story.
Protagonists like James or Matilda are sensitive and intelligent children who survived a tragedy and become victims of constant punishments and injustices on the part of inept and downright evil adults, without any redemption arcs whatsoever (like, Trunchbull and James’s Aunts).
So, it is much more satisfying to see an ending where the protagonist can take revenge on the villains by paying them with the same coin. Another example is the witches, who were turned into rats and get killed by the hotel’s staff. Because after all, they wanted to do the same thing with all the children in England. We cannot feel bad about them, right?
Manipulative? Of course. Effective? Oh. Definitely.
The life of “the rotten Dahl”
It is almost inevitable to analyze an author without exploring aspects of his private life. With a quick look at some moments of Dahl’s personal history, we will realize that there is a lot of tragedy.
He was sent to a boarding school where he received constant abuse and as an adult, almost dies fighting in World War II. His older daughter died at the age of seven and, a taxi run over his only son and causes him irreparable brain damage.
His first marriage with the actress Patricia Neal ended up on awfully bad terms after he was unfaithful with one of her friends. Also, it is not difficult to find some interviews where he makes very antisemitic comments.
Of course, we can try to separate the author from the work if we believe that his most reprehensible attitudes as an individual are not manifested itself in his art.
But is this possible? To what extent really?
The childish look
There is something inherently macabre about children’s stories. We can see it in the folk tales collected by the Grimm Brothers or Charles Perrault.
And Dahl knew how to speak directly to his audience, using colorful language with made-up words like Hopscotchy and Whizzpopping, absurd plots, jokes, and childish revenge fantasies.
A quote from Maria Nikolajeva, a literature teacher who defends the British author, says:
“If Dahl had been a sweet, benevolent storyteller would he have survived at all? Who wants sweet, benevolent stories?”
So, we can feel repelled by the man behind, but if is there an attribute that we can acknowledge to Roald Dahl’s legacy, is for showing that childhood is a complex stage, which is not always full of innocence and nicely misunderstandings as we are led to believe.
