Children are a particularly challenging audience to write for. Yes, they’re young and impressionable. But they are also equipped with the most incredible powers of imagination. And most importantly, this is a fact we like to ignore, children have a gleeful fascination for vermicious scrumptious things. As a child, with my six long years of experience in this world, I didn’t know what sort of books I wanted to read. But when I stumbled across Roald Dahl’s strange and sometimes bizarre worlds of witches, chocolate factories, big-eared vegetarian giants, and revolting rhymes, I knew I had found something special.
Undoubtably one of the most influential children’s writers of the 20th century, Roald Dahl had a profound impact on millions of children around the world. He has also played a major role in shaping the genre of children’s fiction, and influenced an entire generation of storytellers. From the writer Neil Gaiman to the filmmaker Tim Burton, traces of his dark wit and humour can be found everywhere. Dahl had an excellent understanding of his target audience, and perhaps the most important aspect of his work is that he never underestimated them.
In an interview he once said that the key was to conspire with children against adults. He created secret worlds for children where they could let their minds run free. On rare occasions, a doting grandparent was allowed to join in the adventures. Like when Charlie Bucket, wins a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s mysterious chocolate factory, he is accompanied by his old Grandpa Joe. But evil aunts are left behind as James escapes in a giant peach with a grasshopper and his friends, and the abusive, tyrannical headmistress Miss Trunchbull is defeated by Matilda.
Morality is never the point of Dahl’s stories, a factor that certainly contributes to their popularity. He could probably be best described as the mischievous little devil we all have in our heads. His protagonists are usually ordinary children who stumble into something strange and wonderful that lurks just beneath the surface of the world we know. The point of the story is the adventure itself, and is often exciting, horrifying, hilarious and heart-warming all at once. There is no moral to be found here. That is just how the story goes.
In The Witches, a young boy and his grandmother embark on a mission to save the world from evil child-eating witches. Along the way, our hero gets turned into a mouse, but he manages to defeat the nasty toe-less hags. In The BFG, little Sophie spots a giant wandering the streets of London during the witching hour. She is whisked away by the BFG to the land of giants where she hatches a plan to end their secret reign of terror forever. Some stories are less macabre, but just as fantastical, like The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me, where a boy teams up with a giraffe and a pelican to start a window cleaning company. I could go on, but you get the idea.
Dahl’s autobiography Boy: Tales of Childhood offers an insight into where he derived the inspiration for some of these stories. In the preface to the book he writes:
“Throughout my young days at school, and just afterwards a number of things happened to me that I have never forgotten. Some are funny. Some are painful. Some are unpleasant. I suppose that is why I have always remembered them so vividly. All are true”
Like all his other work, the book is equal parts funny and unpleasant. Dahl describes in striking detail events from his early schooling like The Great Mouse Plot of 1924 when he infamously planted a dead rat in the jar of a sweet shop owner against whom he held a grudge. It is narrated as a glorious moment when a group of brave young boys exact their revenge on the wicked Miss Pratchett who hated little boys and guarded her sweets with her grimy hands. But Dahl also doesn’t skim over the fact that he was flogged by his headmaster as a punishment. He was only eight at the time. The thrill of adventure doesn’t mask the horror that accompanies it. Maybe it is experiences like these that contribute to the darkness we find in his works. The antagonists of his stories, who are normally evil adults, often meet gruesome ends. In James and the Giant Peach, James’ wicked aunts Spiker and Sponge are squashed to death by the giant peach. The nasty Mr and Mrs Twit in The Twits glue their heads to the floor and mysteriously disappear after they get “the shrinks”.
Outside of his books, Dahl lived a fairly exciting life. After graduating school, he went on to become a Shell Oil officer in Mombasa in Africa, before enlisting in the Royal Air Force as a fighter pilot during World War II, a phase of his life which he records in Going Solo, the sequel to his autobiography. He describes with great relish the luxuries afforded to him as one of the few Shell Oil officers in Africa. But he also describes in equally chilling detail the start of the World War II, and the plane crash in the desert that nearly killed him. The story ends with his return to England, but of course, Dahl’s life didn’t. He went on to have a career in espionage and even dabbled in screen-writing in addition to his highly successful career as a writer. To me, one of the most fascinating characters that he created, was the man himself— Roald Dahl.
You meet this character, ever present in the narration of his books, and wicked verse he composes. He stands next to us, a tall, lanky figure with a sardonic smile and whispers, “Adults are rather rubbish, aren’t they? Always telling you what to do. Come on, let’s sneak away and find some scrumdiddlyumptious frobscottle.” Even now, as an adult, I’m sorry to say I agree with him. We are all indeed, rather rubbish.
One of the saddest parts of growing up is that you stop seeing your hero through rose tinted glasses. There are aspects of his work that don’t age well and his views on certain issues are, one must acknowledge, problematic. Adults aren’t always evil like in Dahl’s stories, but they certainly aren’t perfect idols either. Some writers, like Dahl, are flawed individuals who are also capable of creating incredibly powerful works of fiction. As grown-ups, it is our rather depressing job to reconcile these two facts, so that the child in all of us can continue to revel in the stories that have shaped our imaginations.
Thalluri Natasha
Visiting Faculty, ELTIS