Matilda a Villain?
Matilda is a lovable little girl with genius abilities. She’s so smart she even learns how to move things with her mind! But can you imagine if that sweet girl was actually the villain in the story? When Roald Dahl wrote the first draft of Matilda, she was! Roald Dahl’s editor was very upset when he read the original story, and Dahl later admitted that he’d gotten the story wrong. He re-wrote Matilda to be the hero of the story, at the mercy of her mean parents and teacher, Miss Trunchbull.
Matilda
In early versions the story is a cautionary tale. Matilda is an extremely naughty girl who plays pranks on everyone around her. She dies in melodramatic fashion at the end of the book
Some of the pranks were retained in the published edition. However, there is a happy ending. Matilda, who has supernatural powers, begins a happy life with her favourite teacher, Miss Honey, as her nasty parents flee the police
Who Was Roald Dahl?
Roald Dahl was a British author who penned 19 children’s books over his decades-long writing career. In 1953 he published the best-selling story collection Someone Like You and married actress Patricia Neal. He published the popular book James and the Giant Peach in 1961. In 1964 he released another highly successful work, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was later adapted for two films.
Early Life
Dahl was born in Cardiff, Wales in 1916, in the district of Llandaff. His parents were Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Dahl (née Hesselberg), both of whom were Norwegian immigrants. Harold had originally immigrated from Norway in the 1880s and lived in Cardiff with his French first wife, with whom he had two children (a daughter, Ellen, and a son, Louis) before her death in 1907.
Sofie immigrated later and married Harold in 1911. They had five children, Roald and his four sisters Astri, Alfhild, Else, and Asta, all of whom they raised Lutheran. In 1920, Astri died suddenly of appendicitis, and Harold died of pneumonia only weeks later; Sofie was pregnant with Asta at the time. Instead of returning to her family in Norway, she stayed in the UK, wanting to follow her husband’s wishes to give their children an English education.
Early Life
As a boy, Dahl was sent to an English public boarding school, St. Peter’s. He was intensely unhappy during his time there, but never let his mother know how he felt about it. In 1929, he moved to Repton School in Derbyshire, which he found equally unpleasant due to the culture of intense hazing and the cruelty with which older students dominated and bullied the younger ones; his hatred for corporal punishment stemmed from his school experiences. One of the cruel headmasters he loathed, Geoffrey Fisher, later became the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the association somewhat soured Dahl on religion.
Surprisingly, he was not noted as a particularly talented writer during his schoolboy days; in fact, many of his evaluations reflected precisely the opposite. He did enjoy literature, as well as sports and photography. Another of his iconic creations was sparked by his schooling experiences: the Cadbury chocolate company occasionally sent samples of new products to be tested by Repton students, and Dahl’s imagination of new chocolate creations would later turn into his famous Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He graduated in 1934 and took a job with the Shell Petroleum Company; he was sent as an oil supplier to Kenya and Tanganyika (modern-day Tanzania).
why a writer?
Dahl’s children’s fiction is known for its sudden turns into the fantastic, its fast-moving pace,
and its decidedly harsh treatment of any adults foolish enough to cause trouble for the young heroes and heroines. Similarly,
his adult fiction often relied on a sudden twist that threw light on what had been happening in the story.
Looking back on his years as a writer in Boy: Tales of Childhood, Dahl contended that “two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock.… A person is a fool to become a writer. His only [reward] is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.”
Fun facts about Roald Dahl
Dahl wrote two autobiographies. The first was called Boy and covered his childhood up to the age of 20. The second was Going Solo where he talks about his first jobs and his experiences as a fighter pilot in WWII.
Roald was married to Hollywood actress Patricia Neal.
He kept a diary as a child and hid it up at the top of a tree so his sisters couldn’t get to it.
He was 6 feet 6 inches tall! His favorite color was yellow and his favorite food was caviar.