The Witches

“A witch is always a woman. I do not wish to speak badly about women. Most women are lovely. But the fact remains that all witches are women. There is no such thing as a male witch.”

The narrative uses repetition to link witches with women, and to create a sense of rhythm. The boy repeats “women” three times to highlight the fact that witches are a specific gender. The claim is a red herring. Later, the grandma says witches aren’t women but demons.

“My grandmother was the only grandmother I ever met who smoked cigars. She lit one now, a long black cigar that smelt of burning rubber.”

The cigar suggests Grandmamma’s unique, gender-bending identity. She smokes cigars, which, in Western culture, is often linked to men. Dahl uses imagery to paint a visual of the smoking grandma, describing the cigar and smell.

“You don’t seem to understand that witches are not actually women at all. They look like women. They talk like women. And they are able to act like women. But in actual fact, they are totally different animals. They are demons in human shape. That is why they have claws and bald heads and queer noses and peculiar eyes, all of which they have to conceal as best they can from the rest of the world.”

The grandma uses repetition to stress her point that witches aren’t women, repeating “like women.” She juxtaposes the witches’ appearance with their true identity and uses imagery to highlight how witches actually are, detailing their noses and claws. The narrative uses polysyndeton, where words are separated by the same conjunction, in this case “and,” creating a sense of breathlessness and urgency: “That is why they have claws and bald heads and queer noses and peculiar eyes […]” (emphasis added).

“‘She is the ruler of them all,’ my grandmother said. ‘She is all-powerful. She is without mercy. All other witches are petrified of her.’”

The grandma uses hyperbole or exaggerated language to convey the tyranny of the Grand High Witch. The dramatic, categorical diction reflects the Grand High Witch’s extreme level of power. The narrative also repeats “She is” for emphasis.

“‘I am a retired witchophile,’ she said. ‘I am too old to be active any longer. But when I was younger, I travelled all over the globe trying to track down The Grand High Witch. I never came even close to succeeding.’”

The grandma provides a few details about her history. She also introduces a red herring: She claims that she’s too old to hunt witches, which will be proven wrong by the end. Dahl invents a word, “witchophile.”

“‘You had better get the rat-catcher in at once,’ my grandmother said, ‘before I report you to the Public Health Authorities. I expect there’s rats scuttling all over the kitchen floor and stealing the food off the shelves and jumping in and out of the soup.’”

Fearlessly, the grandma confronts the hotel manager. She has little difficulty outmaneuvering men. She has also provided the reader with significant foreshadowing. There won’t be rats jumping around the kitchen and in the soup, but there will be a mouse—her grandson—doing just that.

“She was wearing a wig! She was also wearing gloves! I glanced swiftly around at the rest of the now seated audience. Every one of them was wearing gloves!”

Dahl uses italics and exclamation points to convey the boy’s shock, alarm, and childlike voice. The boy repeats “wearing” and “gloves” to stress what he’s deduced—how witches have surrounded him in the ballroom.

“‘Miserrrable vitches!’ she yelled. ‘Useless lazy vitches! Feeble frrribbling vitches! You are a heap of idle good-for-nothing vurms!’”

Dahl uses unfamiliar diction to make the Grand High Witch sound strange and ominous. Her words feature many “v’s” and “r’s.” She doesn’t speak in standard English because she’s not a “normal” woman. Her hyperbolic insults reveal the unequal power dynamic between the Grand High Witch and the other witches. She can relentlessly scold them, and there’s nothing the other witches can do about it.

“A great gasp went up from the audience. I saw the witches all looking at one another with deeply troubled expressions. And I heard one witch at the end of the front row saying aloud, ‘All of them! We can’t possibly wipe out all of them!’”

The “troubled expressions” reveal that not all of the witches are as evil as the Grand High Witch. Dahl uses dialogue, where one unnamed witch expresses her reservations about the extreme plan. The witch’s voice reinforces the claim that some witches have consciences, or that they aren’t cocky enough to believe that they can get rid of all of England’s children.

“Teachers is all rrrushing and rrrunning out and getting mouse-trrraps and baiting them vith cheese and putting them down all over school! Mice is nibbling cheese! Mouse-trrraps is going off! All over school, mouse-trrraps is going snappety-snap and mouse-heads is rrrolling across the floors like marbles!”

The Grand High Witch uses imagery to illustrate what will happen when the kids turn into mice during school. Her exclamation marks reinforce how excited she is to put her plan into practice. The inclusion of teachers, who will put the mice children in traps, implicates adults in the plan. Without the grownup teachers, there are no mouse traps or cheese.

“‘So you mix in the egg,’ The Grand High Witch went on, ‘and vun after the other you also mix in the following items: the claw of a crrrabcrrruncher, the beak of a blabbersnitch, the snout of a grrrobblesqvirt and the tongue of a catsprrringer. I trust you are not having any trrrouble finding those.’”

Dahl juxtaposes the banal and extraordinary to bring humor to the recipe. The formula calls for a typical ingredient—an egg—with strangers ingredients like “the claw of a crrrabcrrruncher.” The made-up creatures add zaniness. The names are meant to be fun to say (though difficult to spell).

“There was a column of ants marching across one of the flagstones and Bruno Jenkins was focusing the sun through his magnifying-glass and roasting the ants one by one.”

Bruno is characterized as unlikeable through his hatefulness to ants. When the witches turn him into a mouse, the reader is meant to not feel too bad for him.

“‘You ancient vuns have served me vell over many years,’ said The Grand High Witch, ‘and I do not vish to deny you the pleasure of bumping off a few thousand children each just because you have become old and feeble.’”

The Grand High Witch switches to a grateful tone when addressing the older witches. She thanks them and showcases her generosity by making them potions so they can participate in the scheme. In her own way, the Grand High Witch can be inclusive, tolerant, and understanding toward her kind—even though it’s in the service of evil.

“I felt as though I was a balloon and somebody was twisting the top of the balloon and twisting and twisting and the balloon was getting smaller and smaller and the skin was getting tighter and tighter and soon it was going to burst.”

The narrative uses a simile, where something is compared to something else using “like” or “as,” to convey what it’s like as the boy transforms into a mouse. The boy compares the metamorphosis to a balloon using “as.” He also uses repetition to stress the intensity of the process and its discomfort: “twisting,” “getting smaller,” and “getting tighter.” These lines again use polysyndeton to create a sense of breathlessness and urgency: “[…] and twisting and twisting and the balloon was getting smaller and smaller and the skin was getting tighter and tighter and soon it was going to burst” (emphasis added).

“What’s so wonderful about being a little boy anyway? Why is that necessarily any better than being a mouse? I know that mice get hunted and they sometimes get poisoned or caught in traps. But little boys sometimes get killed, too. Little boys can be run over by motor-cars or they can die of some awful illness. Little boys have to go to school. Mice don’t. Mice don’t have to pass exams. Mice don’t have to worry about money.”

Dahl uses a stream-of-consciousness style to enter the boy’s mind and illuminate his in-the-moment thoughts about the positives of becoming a mouse. The boy juxtaposes his life as a boy with his life as a mouse and realizes the latter isn’t so bad. The thoughts represent the boy’s acceptance of his new identity and appearance. The lines repeat “little boys” and “mice don’t” to create a sense of rhythm.

“‘Children should never have baths,’ my grandmother said. ‘It’s a dangerous habit.’”

The grandma reveals her alliance with children when she says something that a fair amount of kids might agree with: They shouldn’t have to bathe. The quip is ironic as there is a life-or-death reason to avoid bathing: The dangerous witches can smell a clean child much easier than a dirty child.

“‘So I’m not really an ordinary mouse at all,’ I said. ‘I’m a sort of mouse-person.’”

The boy demonstrates the complicated relationship between identity and appearance. The boy is a mouse, but he’s not a total mouse—he’s also still a person. The hyphenated “mouse-person” showcases the bending of identities in the story. In Dahl’s world, people can be all sorts of things.

“‘She’s a murderer,’ my grandmother said. ‘She’s the most evil woman in the entire world.’”

After the boy safely returns with the mouse formula, the grandma uses hyperbole to reinforce the wickedness of the Grand High Witch. The extreme language hints that the grandma and the Grand High Witch may have some sort of personal relationship. Maybe the Grand High Witch cut off her thumb or harmed her brother, though the narrative never confirms.

“He was a large coarse man and he wasn’t used to being pushed around by anybody.”

Dahl creates an unflattering portrayal of Mr. Jenkins. Unlike Grandmamma, he’s “coarse” and not loving. Dahl uses Mr. Jenkins to show how grownups are mostly unbecoming people.

“I do believe that turning you into a mouse has doubled your brain-power!”

Dahl continues to play with identity and subvert hierarchies. The grandma tells the boy he’s two times as smart as a mouse. Maybe mice are smarter than people. Grandmamma’s acceptance of the boy as a mouse shows her love and tolerance.

“The noise! And the steam! And the clatter of pots and pans! And the cooks all shouting! And the waiters all rushing in and out from the Dining-Room yelling the food orders to the cooks!”

Dahl uses imagery and exclamation marks to evoke the chaotic atmosphere of the kitchen. Myriad sights and sounds confront the boy. His mission isn’t easy—the kitchen is precarious terrain. By starting the last three sentences with “And,” Dahl mimics the frenzy of the scene.

“I can’t have a mouse for a son!”

Mr. Jenkin’s declaration reflects his intolerance and narrow mind. He doesn’t accept his son’s new identity and doesn’t want him to be a part of his family. Once again, grownups come across as subpar figures.

“All over the Dining-Room women were screaming and strong men were turning white in the face and shouting, ‘It’s crazy! This can’t happen! Let’s get the heck out of here quick!’”

Dahl shows how poorly the adults react to the metamorphosis of the witches. They have lost their composure and are acting mindlessly. Their response advances the negative portrayal of adults in the novel.