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Chapter 34
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in James and the Giant Peach, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Children vs. Adults
Assumptions vs. Curiosity
Nature and Growing Up
Fun, Nonsense, and Absurdity
Summary
Analysis
The peach falls faster and faster. The narrator is certain that the peach will “smash into a million pieces” when it hits the ground. Everyone who isn’t yet hiding underground looks up and watches the peach—which they think is a bomb—fall. Several women scream, while men say goodbye to each other. The city waits for the end.
According to the narrator, everyone—including those on the peach—believes they’re going to die, which is another reference to the tense wartime climate in which Dahl was writing. But given that the novel makes it clear that people shouldn’t jump to conclusions, it seems unlikely that anyone is actually going to die here.
Themes
