The Witches Study Guide

Roald Dahl was the child of two Norwegian immigrants to Great Britain. His father was a shipbroker and a self-made man, and his mother came from a family of wealthy lawyers and merchants. Dahl was the eldest of his parents’ five children, although his father had two children with his first wife, who died when their children were still small. When Dahl was three, his sister Astra and his father died within weeks of each other. His mother chose to stay in England, where she hoped her children would receive a good education. Dahl was sent to boarding schools where he experienced extreme homesickness, was subjected to hazing by other students, and was criticized by his teachers. After school, Dahl briefly worked in the burgeoning oil industry before the outbreak of World War II, at which point he joined the Royal Air Force. He was discharged after an airplane crash left him seriously wounded, at which point he became a diplomat and was sent to the United States. He married actress Patricia Neal, with whom he would have five children. Dahl frequently credited his children with his writing career, saying that many of his books began as bedtime stories told to them. During his long career, Dahl wrote 17 novels for children, 2 novels for adults, at least 20 short story collections (mainly for adults), 4 screenplays, and several poetry collections among other occasional pieces. Dahl, who died in 1990 at the age of 74, has a complicated legacy. He has been both accused of antisemitism and insensitive depictions of other groups of people and cited as one of the greatest 20th-century children’s authors.

The Witches is a rather timeless book given its dearth of specific historical or technological details, although the image of a society of well-dressed witches who always wear hats and gloves in public recalls the fashions of the 1960s or earlier. Nevertheless, it is impossible to consider how Dahl portrays the witches without acknowledging his vocal antisemitism. The witches’ secret society in the novel, along with their goal of killing children, has parallels with conspiracies about Jewish people secretly controlling global banking or using Christian children for blood sacrifices. Additionally, many critics have noted that it’s traditional for Orthodox Jewish women to cover their hair, sometimes with wigs, as the witches do in the novel. The Witches also deals thematically with untrustworthy adults (both witches and neglectful parents like the Jenkinses) and the difficulties of surviving a potentially lonely or frightening childhood. The 1980s saw the rise of the term “latchkey kid” to describe those children who were left unattended at home by their working (or otherwise occupied) parents. Although the protagonist’s grandmother is a doting caregiver, the novel nevertheless starkly warns about the dangerous things that can happen when children are insufficiently protected by the adults who are supposed to be looking out for them.

As a writer, Roald Dahl was heavily influenced by the books he read when he was a young person. The fascination with (and anthropomorphizing of) animals—particularly mice—in The Witches recalls the works of Dahl’s childhood idol, Beatrix Potter, whose books (like The Tale of Peter Rabbit, first published in 1902), feature talking animal characters. Although quite different in tone, E. B. White’s 1945 Stuart Little has a similarly fantastical setup to The Witches in its focus on the adventures of human boy who nevertheless looks exactly like (and is frequently mistaken for) a little white mouse. Themes of orphanhood, resilience, and overcoming dangers in The Witches recall another of Dahl’s favorite authors, Charles Dickens, especially Oliver Twist, which was published in the 1830s. Dahl himself takes up these themes in his other works, particularly Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), The BFG (1982), and Matilda (1988), which feature disadvantaged, neglected, or orphaned protagonists who are much smarter and more capable than the adults around them.