Olivia Diaz de
Villegas
Individual Text Feature: Matilda by Roald Dahl
Matilda
by Roald Dahl tells of a young girl who is anything but ordinary. She is very
intelligent and has a thirst for knowledge that leads her to discover the
wonders of literature. By the age of one and a half, Matilda’s speech was
perfect and she knew as many words as most adults. By the time she was three,
she had taught herself to read. By the age of four, she had exhausted all of
her resources at home in terms of reading material, and finally asked her
parents to supply her with a book. This request was met with anger and
dismissed immediately. Her parents viewed her request as an instance of
ingratitude since they were fortunate enough to have a perfectly functioning
television. One day, Matilda took matters into her own hands and visited a
public library. Mrs. Phelps the librarian was fascinated with Matilda’s ability
to devour book after book. It was Mrs. Phelps who eventually gave Matilda her
key to happiness: a library card. By having her very own library card, she was
able to take as many books as she wanted home with her so that she wouldn’t have
to make the trek to the library every single day. One evening, Matilda asked to
excuse herself from dinner so that she could read her book on the dining room
table instead of watching television during dinner. Mr. Wormwood, gets angry
and says that dinnertime is family time. Matilda is also angered by the outcome
of their conversation, but she keeps it to herself and resolves to get revenge
on her father. She puts her plans into action and puts super-glue on her father’s
hat. Matilda makes fun of her father and also mentions a story about a boy who
super-glued his finger to the inside of his nose, causing her father even more
embarrassment because he feels as though his intellect is being insulted. The
next time Matilda punishes her father, it is after he rips apart one of her
library books. This time, Matilda enlists the help of her friend Fred’s parrot.
She stuff’s the bird in the chimney and her family is frightened by the parrot (who
has the ability to speak) because they think that there is a ghost in their
house. The cycle of mistreatment and punishment occurs time and time again in
the novel; Matilda even puts platinum hair dye in her father’s hair tonic after
he calls her a liar.
Matilda
is finally given the opportunity to attend primary school and this is where she
finally meets an adult that recognizes her value and intelligence: Miss. Honey.
Though it is comforting that Matilda now has a positive adult in her life, she is
not totally free from bullies. Crunchem Hall Primary School is run by Miss
Trunchbull, a heinous woman who despises children. When Miss Honey first
notices Matilda’s brilliance, she rushes to Miss Trunchbull’s office and urges
her to allow Matilda to skip a grade or two. Miss Trunchbull dismisses her and
does not allow Matilda to advance, but Miss Honey resolves to make sure that
Matilda is given a great education regardless and gives Matilda a bunch of
advanced textbooks. Miss Honey does not just give Matilda those textbooks, she
also pays the Wormwood residence a visit to speak with Matilda’s parents. This
experience is disheartening because Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood ignore Miss Honey and
do not see the value in having intelligence or a good education.
The
next couple of days at school are rather frightening as the reader sees how
awful Miss Trunchbull treats the students that attend Crunchem Hall Primary
School. She first grabs Amanda by her braids and swings her around before
tossing her. Bruce Bogtrotter is the next victim; he is forced to eat a giant
chocolate cake because he took some cake from Miss Trunchbull’s secret stash.
Matilda decides to punish Miss Trunchbull for her actions and her best friend
Lavender helps her accomplish this task by putting a newt in Miss Trunchbull’s
water jug. She blames Matilda for the newt, and this is where we are first
introduced to Matilda’s telekinetic talents. Matilda decides to share her
secret with Miss Honey and they are able to enjoy themselves at Miss Honey’s cottage
for a while. Matilda yearns to know about Miss Honey’s personal life as she is
convinced that she has a secret of her own. Matilda is right, it turns out that
her family life is awful and that she is actually related to Miss Trunchbull. Matilda
decides to use her talents to act on Miss. Honey’s behalf, and get revenge on Miss.
Trunchbull. After Matilda plays her trick on Miss Trunchbull, she is so
frightened that she does not return to the school, abandoning her role as the
principal of the school. Teachers from the school go to Miss Trunchbull's house
to visit her and it appears that all of her belongings are gone. Miss Honey
receives a phone call from a lawyer stating that her father's will has
reappeared and she gets her father's house and money back. Matilda goes to Miss
Honey's house every day and Mr. Trillby has been promoted to head teacher.
Matilda was allowed to skip a lot of grades and is now challenged by her
education and excelling. She is surprised by the fact that she no longer has
the ability to move things with her mind. When Matilda leaves Miss Honey's
house, she is shocked to see that her family is packing up all of their
belongings and getting ready to leave their home for good. Matilda asserts that
she would like to stay with Miss Honey and her family grants her wish.
Although
she is brilliant and wise beyond her years, she is mistreated and ignored by
her parents who are preoccupied with foolish tasks and crookery. This novel
centers on the story of a gifted child who eventually musters up the courage to
stick up to the many adult bullies in her life. My paper will focus on the
portrayal of gifted children in young adult literature. It can be argued that
Matilda showcases the characteristic of giftedness, and minimizes the instances
of her destructive and castigating behavior towards adults in this novel.
Though the adults she punishes, including her own parents, do indeed deserve
some form of chastisement for their blasé and abusive attitude towards Matilda,
it is uncommon for children to act in such a manner. Not all of the adults in
Dahl’s work are evil. Matilda finds solace in her relationship with Miss.
Honey, her schoolteacher. Matilda’s desire to escape her home and seek refuge
in her relationship with Miss Honey because her parents do not appreciate her. It
is not common for gifted children to go unnoticed and even more uncommon for
them to be treated poorly by their parents. This quality of escapism and mistreatment
within novels that discuss gifted children is a curious theme that I would like
to explore.
Hi Olivia,
ReplyDeleteYour post may have opened a can of worms because my dissertation is on representations of giftedness in literature (albeit American so I do not deal with Matilda). However, I know exactly where you can start. As far as persecution and abuse of gifted children, you are right that that is a common trope in YA literature. From Matilda to Ender's Game, and especially in horror novels like Carrie and Firestarter, the gifted child is often portrayed as someone that is taken advantage of and abused by adults. First, this may be because the gifted child challenges middle-class notions of childhood, mainly that the child should be inferior to the adult in knowledge and awareness. Roblyn Rawlins has some articles and chapters on childhood precocity and the early-twentieth century distrust of gifted children that support this view. If you look into the historical treatment of gifted children, by psychologists and educators like Lewis Terman, you will see this same pattern of hyper concern about the gifted child's abnormal status and their potential to become a threat to adult society. However, another vein of scholarship argues that this image of the persecuted gifted child is largely a myth that helps support the racist and classist gifted education program. I.e. by casting these children as poor and neglected, we can justify more federal funding and advanced opportunities for these children that are already advantaged not just by their intelligence but also by that race and class. When gifted education first arose it came from the eugenicist movement. You should check out Leslie Margolin's fantastic book Goodness Personified for more on this. Also, Clementine Beauvais writes about this trend specifically in Matilda in "Child Giftedness as Class Weaponry: The Case of Roald Dahl's Matilda." Another student, I believe it's Jacob, is writing on Ender's Game, so his research may also be relevant to yours.
I was completely wrong about it being Jacob. Safeeyah is working with Ender's Game.
DeleteHey Olivia!
ReplyDeleteI am writing from a similar angle in my paper, and I am interested on your exploration of how Matlida's giftedness effects her behavior. In my own book, Ender's Game, there are many instances in which Enders behavior can be seen as destructive and even cruel, but almost always the behavior is instigated by another and the cause of it is a jealousy or mistrust for his giftedness. I thought that maybe getting an understanding for what extremely gifted children are like behaviorally in reality, might help you shape your understanding and arguments moving forward. To that end I have found an article titled Personality Dimensions of Gifted Adolescents by Paula Olszewski-Kubilius and Marilynn Kulieke. In the article they also compare and contrast gifted and normal children and provide supported data so that you can maybe have a bit more authority when talking about gifted youth. I hope it helps and since we are in the same wheelhouse, I can send you other things I find on the subject and would definitely be grateful for anything you wanted to share as well. Let me know!
Hi Olivia,
ReplyDeleteThe aspect of your text feature that interested me the most was your focus specifically on the mistreatment of gifted children. I have taken a class with Professor Gregory before which focused on Evil Children and the concept of a gifted child was often brought up. I think one way to focus your view could be to focus on the dichotomy between gifted children who use their powers for good (e.g. Ender from Ender's Game, Matilda) and gifted children who become evil. This division usually stems from a difference in the treatment of the child yet Matilda breaks from expectation in that the protagonist overcomes her abusive relationship with her parents and is kindhearted regardless of her circumstance. I think an article you could use for your paper is one from the aforementioned Evil Children class: "Spoil the Child" by William Wandless." You could also use Peter Stearns' "Anxious Parents" to help analyze the behavior of the adult figures in Matilda.