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Dahl likely did this because he loved his own mother, whom the grandmother character in his books was based upon, but also wanted to cultivate a certain amount of distrust in adults in his readers. The grandmother is set apart from all other adults in The Witches in many ways. In this sense, readers are warned to be careful of how and what they and others eat. Food is also the way in which the witches plan to administer Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker to children and the way in which the boy ironically administers the same formula to the witches themselves. Dahl often pairs greed and gluttony in his depictions of bad children (such as Veruca Salt and Violet Bauregarde in Dahl's classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) who love to eat, and above all to eat candy. Bruno is depicted as constantly eating, and the reader also learns that he is a rich and spoiled child. While some critics have said that these symbols make the book misogynistic, arguing that it portrays women as evil and deceitful, others argue that these symbols actually support the moral that things are not always as they seem, and especially as they may be presented by people with power.įood is an important motif in the story, especially as it relates to the annoying little boy Bruno Jenkins.
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In general, these items are described as making witches indistinguishable from normal women. Specifically, the witches, who are horrible, non-human creatures who masquerade daily as normal women, wear gloves and wigs The Grand High Witch, the most powerful and terrible witch of all, also has to wear a mask. Masks, Gloves, and Wigs (Symbol)Īt least three symbols in The Witches center around the idea of covering things up or disguising the truth. The boy contemplates whether life would be better as a person or a mouse, and decides that life as a mouse may be better because there is no school and no wars, a deep, insightful moment for such a young child regarding significant and age-old human problems. In the end, Bruno, the boy, and all of the witches are turned into mice. While the boy exerts control over these mice, he is always kind to them and is never scared as a rule, the adults in Dahl's story are scared of mice and children are not, though the grandmother is a notable exception to this rule. After that, as the boy and the grandmother's stay at the hotel approaches, she buys him two white mice that he names William and Mary and starts to train to do tricks. Mice are first mentioned when the boy uses them as a reference point in a description of his grandmother he says that she filled up her armchair so much that even a mouse couldn't fit in it with her. Mice are, clearly, a very important part of The Witches: the climax of Dahl's story is almost 100 witches turning into a mass of brown mice before a crowd of onlookers.