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21. Chocolates
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
Roald’s mathematics teacher, Corkers, comes up with a variety of schemes to entertain his classes without actually teaching them mathematics. Instead, he gives them crosswords to work on as a class and introduces them to snakes to counteract their fears. Roald particularly remembers when Corkers would stop talking mid-sentence, get a funny look on his face, and proclaim that somebody had farted. On these occasions, Corkers cried out for the boys to air out the room, which they did at once. While they were opening windows and fanning the air, he left the classroom and didn’t return for the rest of the day.
If the adults in Roald’s life generally are either helpful (like his mother and Dr. Dunbar) or harmful (like Matron and the Headmasters), Corkers seems to fall into a neutral zone. He’s not interested in doing his job of teaching mathematics, but he doesn’t actively hurt the students, either. At the end of the day, Corkers does teach the boys a bit about having fun and playing pretend, which seems to be why Roald remembers him so well.
Themes
