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16. Little Ellis and the Boil
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Boy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Authority and Hypocrisy
Beauty and Imagination
Growing Up
English Nationalism
Summary
Analysis
During the summer of Roald’s ninth year, his older half-sister brings her new fiancé on the family trip to Norway. The couple does everything together, which annoys the rest of the close-knit family. They also dislike the fiancé’s smelly pipe, which he almost never takes out of his mouth. On an island outing, the fiancé puts down his pipe to go swimming with Roald’s half-sister. Looking at the pipe sitting next to some goat droppings, Roald gets an idea and empties out the pipe’s tobacco, replacing it with goat dung instead. When the fiancé returns, everyone watches as he picks up the pipe and resumes smoking. At first, he doesn’t seem to notice any change, but when he suddenly screams and starts hacking and spitting, the children laughingly tell him what happened. They flee into the water as he rises angrily.
Roald recounts his inability to understand why his half-sister and her fiancé wanted to spend all their time alone together with amusement, highlighting his childhood innocence in matters of love. Like Roald’s other stories of Norwegian summers, this chapter is lighthearted and full of fun. Roald’s goat-dung prank is similar to his dead-mouse prank on Mrs. Pratchett, but the consequences for his actions couldn’t be more different. While he underwent a humiliating caning for his dead mouse prank, his goat dung prank is met with laughter and playful pursuit from his family. Again, the contrast between Roald’s treatment while with his family in Norway as opposed to the discipline he undergoes while at school in England suggests that the harsh order of English schooling is excessive and unnecessary.
Themes
