The Witches (book)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Witches is a book for children by Roald Dahl, first published in London in 1983 by Jonathan Cape. The book, like many of Dahl's works, is illustrated by Quentin Blake. Its content has made the book the frequent target of censors. It appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number twenty-seven.^[1] For the 1990 film of the book, see The Witches. The book was also adapted into a stage play.

[edit] Plot

The book's witches make up a well-connected organisation which aims to wipe out children. This organisation has branches in every country in the world, and is particularly powerful in the slate blue countryside of Norway. The chapters in different countries are forbidden to communicate although the witches in each country are generally all friends.

At the annual convention of English witches (ironically disguised as a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children convention), the Grand High Witch, angry at the witches' failure to destroy all of the children in England, unveils her master plan: the British witches should purchase lots of sweet shops (using authentic banknotes given to them by the Grand High Witch who is able to reproduce the currency of any nation by means of a special machine) and give away chocolate. The chocolate will have been laced with Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker, which will change anyone who eats it into a mouse at a specific time. The witches are instructed by the Grand High Witch that the formula will activate at 9am the day after the children have eaten the chocolate, when they are at school. The teachers, she hopes, will panic and kill the mice, thereby doing the witches' work for them.

Unfortunately for the witches, an old Norwegian witch expert and her grandson (the unnamed narrator) are staying at the same hotel as the congregation of witches. By chance, the boy is hiding in the convention room at the time training his pet white mice. After the witches unveil their true selves (removing their wigs to reveal chafed, bald scalps, their shoes to reveal toeless feet, their gloves to reveal long, sharp claws, and grinning widely with their mouths full of cobalt saliva) he quickly realizes the truth and attempts to stay hidden.

The Grand High Witch turns a fat child named Bruno Jenkins (lured to the convention hall by the promise of free chocolate) into a mouse as a demonstration of her potion secured in a tiny ultramarine bottle. Shortly after, the witches smell the narrator's presence (as children smell repulsive to witches) and promptly turn him into a mouse as well by giving him such a massive overdose that the formula works instantly.

The newly transformed boy manages to reach his grandmother's room safely, and together they hatch a plan to add the witches' potion to the green pea soup reserved for them at dinner. The witches all turn into mice almost instantly as they have each had massive overdoses. The hotel staff panic as the Grand High Witch predicted, and kill all England's witches in their form of mice. The boy and his grandmother then create a plan to use the potion recipe the witches created to attack the Grand High Witch's Norwegian headquarters. The idea is that they can turn all of the witches into mice then place a number of cats into the headquarters. That done, they would use the money-printing machine to pay all their expenses when travelling around the world getting rid of all the witches.

At the beginning of the book, the boy suggests the existence of ghouls when he states that a witch is always female whereas a ghoul is always male.

[edit] How to recognize a witch

The book gives several characteristics which distinguish witches from humans. These are told to the boy by his grandmother near the beginning of the book.

1. Slightly larger, shell-shaped nostrils
2. Blue tinge to tongue and teeth (as their saliva is naturally blue).
3. Pupils that seem to change colour and have fire and ice dancing inside.
4. Always wears gloves to cover claw-like fingernails
5. Wears a wig to hide baldness and can be seen scratching hair due to wig-rash.
6. Wears pointy shoes and limps slightly because witches have no toes and square feet.
7. Always a woman.

[edit] Miscellany

In Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes, pea soup based on the food consumed by the witches appears as one of the recipes.

We never know what really happens to the boy's grandmother and why she has a missing thumb. There are suggestions that it was from an encounter from a witch when she was young. This is also mentioned in the film The Witches (1990), but again the cause of the disfigurement was not mentioned.

[edit] See also

• Grand High Witch
• The Witches (1990 film)

[edit] References