Plot Summary

                Matilda is a wonderful story written by Roald Dahl about an amazingly gifted girl named Matilda, born to horrible parents. Matilda’s parents love her less gifted brother more than her and are constantly yelling at her, calling her names, and ripping up her books. Her father uses dishonesty as part of his automobile business and both parents value TV over books. Despite her parents’ obvious neglect, Matilda teaches herself to read at the age of three and is much more intelligent than the average child. When angered by her verbally abusive parents, she devises humorous schemes to get back at them, such as putting glue on the bottom of her father’s hat so that it gets stuck to his head.

                When Matilda gets to school, she is placed in a class with a kind, caring teacher named Miss Honey.  Miss Honey realizes how brilliant Matilda is, but when she confronts the headmistress about moving Matilda to a higher grade, Miss Honey is blamed for trying to “unload her on to the wretched Miss Plimsoll in the top form where she will cause even more chaos” (Dahl 88). The headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, is every bit as awful as Matilda’s parents. She hates children and often uses corporal punishment on them. One day while in Miss Honey’s class, Miss Trunchbull accuses Matilda of putting a newt in her water, something that Matilda did not do. Matilda becomes so angry at this that she uses telekinesis to dump a cup of water all over Miss Trunchbull. That is when Matilda first discovers her magic powers.

                Matilda befriends Miss Honey and learns that the teacher is Miss Trunchbull’s niece. Miss Honey’s father mysteriously died and Miss Trunchbull claimed the house and all his money. She also is taking Miss Honey’s salary, claiming that she deserves it because she raised Miss Honey. Matilda decides to use her telekinesis to help Miss Honey. She perfects her power and while Miss Trunchbull is teaching class, Matilda uses it to write a message from Miss Honey’s father telling Miss Trunchbull to give her back the house and the money. The message works, scaring Miss Trunchbull so badly that she skips town and leaves Miss Honey with everything. In gratitude, Miss Honey decides to adopt Matilda, whose parents are moving to Spain in an effort by her father to avoid prison for repainting stolen cars.

                Although Matilda takes place in the real world, it should be classified as part of the fantasy genre because it contains magic and unrealistic elements. Matilda is smarter than any real person could be, teaching herself to read at the age of 3 without ever being read to (Dahl 11). She also has telekinetic powers, something magical and impossible (172). Even Miss Trunchbull’s horrible punishments are not always possible, like swinging a girl around by her pigtails and throwing her across the playground (114). As we can picture her like a girl swinging her pigtails around we no longer have to, after you have enjoyed the book and have an inside look to the book, take a look at the trailer link and although their are many similarities their are almost always many differences because a movie simply cannot display your own visual elements or add the textual elements and those special features a book can bring but feel free to check out the link below and see if you can notice the difference between the novel and the movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46UFoReRusE. 

Textual Elements.

            This book is told from an omniscient third person point of view. The narrator starts off the book by giving general information to the reader “It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful” (Dahl 7). Then the narrator begins narrating the story and the reader is allowed to see the thoughts of Matilda. “She [Matilda] resented being told constantly that she was ignorant and stupid when she knew she wasn’t” (29). This continues for the rest of the story.

                All of the main adult characters are horrible except for Miss Honey. Matilda’s father, Mr. Wormwood is a dishonest used car salesman who seems to love making Matilda miserable (22). Mrs. Wormwood (Matilda’s mother) would rather go to bingo than take care of Matilda (12). The headmistress, Miss Trunchbull is a “gigantic holy terror, a fierce tyrannical monster who frightened the life out of the pupils and teachers alike” (67). Miss Honey is a refreshing break from all this awfulness. She is described as “a mild and quiet person who never raised her voice… there is no doubt she possessed that rare gift for being adored by every small child under her care” (66).

             A major theme of the book is that evil people get what is coming to them and good triumphs over evil. This can be seen at the end of the book, as Miss Trunchbull gets what she deserves when Matilda uses her power to scare her (223). Good triumphs when Miss Trunchbull vanishes and leaves all of the money and the house to Miss Honey (228). These themes are also evident from the way that Matilda’s father has to skip town to avoid being caught by the police, leaving Matilda under Miss Honey’s custody (236).  

     There however is also a big theme of power. There is the "I'm big, you're small" quotes first by her father and then by the principal. They show how they dominate Matilda and others. The father holds the power over his customers as well as Matilda. Ms. Trunchbull holds her power over Matilda and the other students, even the teachers (Miss Honey). As the story progresses though, Matilda finds that she holds special powers. This causes the power to shift into Matilda's hands and she's able to control all those who have controlled her.

            As the story progresses there is also a theme of revenge. Later on Matilda wants revenge on her father and her principal. Miss Honey helps in on this. However, this is fueling the revenge on Trunchbull because of Miss Honey's unfortunate life events with her father and the house. There's also a little bit of revenge that Trunchbull wants because of the faulty car that was sold to her by Matilda's father and the fact that Matilda broke into her house. But Matilda is able to deflect any damage that was meant for her or any of her friends/loved ones.  Throughout the book you might wonder why it is focused around power or even so much the theme of revenge but these themes have much to offer to children, and are great teaching tools. It is said that everyone has a little Miss Honey or Trunchbull in them so which are you? These themes are questions to lead class discussion and start lesson plans and not only can this site http://www.roalddahl.com/ help you with those it can help you determine the Miss Honey or Trunchbull in you.  

Analysis and Critique

                Roald Dahl has an amazing method of using humor to keep the reader interested in his book. To accomplish this, he uses humorous descriptions full of hilarious similes and metaphors that develop amazingly strong and imaginative imagery in the mind of the reader. One of the pages contains a simile about Miss Trunchbull that causes the reader to get an amusing image of her in their head. “When she marched—Miss Trunchbull never walked, she always marched like a stormtrooper with long strides and arms aswinging…” (Dahl 67). On the same page, there is a metaphor about her that causes one to chuckle. “Thank goodness we don’t meet many people like her [Miss Trunchbull] in this world… If you ever do, you should behave as you would if you met an enraged rhinoceros out in the bush—climb up the nearest tree and stay there until it has gone away” (67). This comparison of Miss Trunchbull with a rhinoceros develops her into a entertainingly horrible character and prepares the reader for humor whenever she comes into the story.

                Dahl’s style is one of very precise, descriptive diction. He uses a difficult vocabulary for children, but one they could still be able to understand using context clues. When he describes the cook, he uses some difficult words. “The cook stood there like a shriveled bootlace, tight-lipped, implacable, disapproving” (Dahl 124). “Implacable” is a word that most children (and some adults) probably would not know, but from the context of the story, one can gather that it means something along the lines of disapproving.

                Through the book Matilda, Dahl seems to be promoting reading and discouraging TV watching. The main character, Matilda loves reading and is really intelligent (13). Her parents think TV is more important and are completely horrible (12). These contrasts in character cause the reader to associate reading with intelligence and TV with nastiness. The fact that Matilda knows how to read also is a way of displaying her intelligence in school (81). This may influence readers to want to be intelligent as well and to read as a way of displaying their knowledge.

                One of the overt messages of the book is that books should be funny. At one point Miss Honey asks Matilda whether she thinks children’s books should be funny (81). “‘I do,’ Matilda said. ‘Children are not so serious as grown-ups and they love to laugh.’ Miss Honey was astounded by the wisdom of this tiny girl” (81). This directly promotes Dahl’s style of putting humor into all of his books. This is also a hidden message of the book, due to the fact that Dahl does write with a humorous style.

                Another hidden message of the book is a negative view of adults and a positive one of children. As aforementioned, most of the adults in the book are horrible (Matilda’s father, mother, and Miss Trunchbull). Even Miss Honey, the most respectable adult in the book, is like a damsel in distress who cannot help herself out of her own misfortune (Dahl). Matilda, a child, has to help Miss Honey to get her money and house back from Miss Trunchbull (Dahl). Matilda is the most intelligent character in the book, and most of the other children are presented in a positive light as well. Bruce Bogtrotter, a child convicted of stealing a cake, was portrayed as a hero fighting against the evil Miss Trunchbull (130). Hortensia, a girl with a boil on her nose who played pranks on Miss Trunchbull was no longer just a girl, but a “goddess” for standing up to her and even the boil on her nose was “a badge of courage” (108). This message is repeated over and over throughout the narrative.

                For more information about the book Matilda, go to http://www.roalddahl.com and look under the tab “books and stuff”. This is Roald Dahl’s official website and also contains information about him, including a biography and an interview of the author. It also has a couple of other surprises that are very true to the author’s style. If you are looking for information to get your students started on lesson plans this site is a very good layout of everything you need to get your students focused and many great activities to learn and broaden their educational learning starting with Matilda yet giving them a larger layout into general scope of other learning material http://www.bookrags.com/plans/TCR0453/.

Citation

Dahl, Roald. Matilda. New York: Scholastic, 1996.

Roald Dahl. 2008. Roald Dahl Nominee Limited.  22 Sep 2009. <http://www.roalddahl.com>

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