James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach
First edition cover
Author(s)	Roald Dahl
Illustrator	Nancy Ekholm Burkert
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Children's novel
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Publication date	1961
Media type	Paperback
Pages	160
ISBN	0-375-81424-8
OCLC Number	50568125
Dewey Decimal	[Fic] 21
LC Classification	PZ8.D137 Jam 2002

James and the Giant Peach is a popular children's novel written in 1961 by British author Roald Dahl. The original first edition published by Alfred Knopf featured illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. However, there have been various reillustrated versions of it over the years, done by Michael Simeon for the first British edition, Emma Chichester Clark, Lane Smith and Quentin Blake. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1996. The plot centers on a young English orphan boy who enters a gigantic, magical peach, and has a wild and surreal cross-world adventure with six anthropomorphic insects he meets within the giant peach. Originally titled James and the Giant Cherry, Dahl changed it to James and the Giant Peach because a peach is "prettier, bigger and squishier" than a cherry.^[1][2]

Because of the story's occasional macabre and potentially frightening content, it has become a regular target of the censors and is #56 on the American Library Association's top 100 list of most frequently challenged books.^[3]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Characters 3 References in the book to other Roald Dahl works 4 the Film version 5 References

Plot

James Henry Trotter, four years old, lives with his loving parents in a pretty and bright cottage by the sea in the south of England. James's world is turned upside down when, while on a shopping trip in London, his mother and father are devoured by a rhinoceros that had escaped from the zoo. James is forced to go and live with his two horrible aunts, Spiker and Sponge, who live on a high, desolate hill near the white cliffs of Dover. For three years Spiker and Sponge physically and verbally abuse James, not allowing him to venture beyond the hill or play with other children. Around the house James is treated as a drudge, beaten for hardly any reason, improperly fed, and forced to sleep on bare floorboards in the attic.

One summer afternoon when he is crying in the bushes, James stumbles across a strange little man, who, mysteriously, knows all about James's plight and gives him a sack of tiny glowing-green crocodile tongues. The man promises that if James mixes the contents of the sack with a jug of water and ten hairs from his own head, the result will be a magic potion which, when drunk, will bring him happiness and great adventures. On the way back to the house, James trips and spills the sack onto the peach tree outside his home, which had previously never given fruit. The tree becomes enchanted through the tongues, and begins to blossom; indeed a certain peach grows to the size of a large house. The aunts discover this and make money off the giant peach while keeping James locked away. At night the aunts shove James outside to collect rubbish from the crowd, but instead he curiously ventures inside a juicy, fleshy tunnel which leads to the hollow stone in the middle of the cavernous fruit. Entering the stone, James discovers a band of rag-tag anthropomorphic insects, also transformed by the magic of the green tongues.

James quickly befriends the insect inhabitants of the peach, who become central to the plot and James' companions in his adventure. The insects loathe the aunts and their hilltop home as much as James, and they were waiting for him to join them so they can escape together. The Centipede bites through the stem of the peach with his powerful jaws, releasing it from the tree, and it begins to roll down the hill, squashing Spiker and Sponge flat in its wake. Inside the stone the inhabitants cheer as they feel the peach rolling over the aunts. The peach rolls through villages, houses, and a famous chocolate factory before falling off the cliffs and into the sea. The peach floats in the English Channel, but quickly drifts away from civilization and into the expanses of the Atlantic Ocean. Hours later, not far from the Azores, the peach is attacked by a swarm of hundreds of sharks. Using the blind Earthworm as bait, the ever resourceful James and the other inhabitants of the peach lure over five hundred seagulls to the peach from the nearby islands. The seagulls are then tied to the broken stem of the fruit using spiderwebs from the Spider and strings of white silk from the Silkworm. The mass of seagulls lifts the giant peach into the air and away from the sharks, with no damage to the plant.

As the seagulls strain to get away from the giant peach, they merely carry it higher and higher, and the seagulls take the giant peach great distances. The Centipede entertains with ribald dirges to Sponge and Spiker, but in his excitement he falls off the peach into the ocean and has to be rescued by James. That night, thousands of feet in the air, the giant peach floats through mountain-like, moonlit clouds. There the inhabitants of the peach see a group of magical ghost-like figures living within the clouds, "Cloud-Men", who control the weather.

As the Cloud-Men gather up the cloud in their hands to form hailstones and snowballs to throw down to the world below, the loud-mouthed Centipede berates the Cloud-Men for making snowy weather in the summertime. Angered, an army of Cloud-Men appear from the cloud and pelt the giant peach with hail so fiercely and powerfully that the peach is severely damaged, with entire chunks taken out of it, and the giant fruit begins leaking its peach juice. All of this shrinks the peach somewhat, although because it is now lighter the seagulls are able to pull it quicker through the air. As the seagulls strain to get away from the Cloud-Men, the giant peach smashes through an unfinished rainbow the Cloud-Men were preparing for dawn, infuriating them even further. One Cloud-Man almost gets on the peach by climbing down the silken strings tied to the stem, but James asks the Centipede to bite through some of the strings. When he does a single freed seagull, to which the Cloud-Man is hanging from, is enough the carry him away from the peach as Cloud-Men are weightless.

As the sun rises, the inhabitants of the giant peach see the glimmering skyscrapers of New York City peeking above the clouds. The people below see the giant peach suspended in the air by a swarm of hundreds of seagulls, and panic, believing it to be a floating, orange-coloured, spherical nuclear bomb. The military, police, fire, and rescue services are all called out, and people begin running to air raid shelters and subway stations, believing the city is about to be destroyed. A huge passenger jet flies past the giant peach, almost hitting it, and severing the silken strings between the seagulls and the peach. The seagulls free, the peach begins to fall to the ground, but it is saved when it is impaled upon the tip of the Empire State Building. The people on the 86th floor observation deck at first believe the inhabitants of the giant peach to be monsters or Martians, but when James appears from within the skewered peach and explains his story, the people hail James and his insect friends as heroes. They are given a welcoming home parade, and James gets what he wanted for three long years - playmates in the form of millions of potential new childhood friends. The skewered, battered remains of the giant peach are brought down to the streets by steeplejacks, where its delicious flesh is eaten up by ten thousand children, all now James's friends. Meanwhile, the peach's other former residents, the anthropomorphic insects, all go on to find very interesting futures in the world of humans.

In the last chapter of the book, it is revealed that the giant hollowed-out stone which had once been at the center of the peach is now a mansion located in Central Park. James lives out the rest of his life in the giant peach stone, which becomes an open tourist attraction and the ever-friendly James has all the friends he has ever wanted.

Characters

• James Henry Trotter - The protagonist of the book, James is a seven-year-old orphaned boy who is forced into the care of his repulsive and abusive aunts, Spiker and Sponge, after his parents are killed by a rhinocerous. He wants nothing more than to have friends and be happy, which his aunts deny him. James sees this as far worse than any abuse they give him. His wish is eventually granted, however, in the form of the magical, anthropomorphic insects he meets in the giant peach. By the end of his adventure, he gets more than he wished for in the form of millions of playmates in New York City. Something of a dreamer, James is, nonetheless, clever and ever-resourceful throughout his adventure in the giant peach, and his intuitive plans save his and his friends' lives on more than one occasion.

• The Old Man - A friendly yet mysterious wizard who is only seen once, yet is ultimately behind all of magical occurrences in the book, and also starts the adventure when he gives James a bag full of magical gems. It is these magical items which enchant the giant peach and its insect inhabitants, allowing James to begin his surreal journey and escape his evil aunts in the process. The wizard is not seen again after his encounter with James. However in the 1996 re-printing of the book, with illustrations by Lane Smith, the mysterious old man can be seen in the final illustration hiding amongst the New York City crowd.

• Aunt Spiker - A dominating, cruel, malicious, and thoroughly repulsive lady, who derives a sadistic pleasure in manipulating and tormenting young James, who she sees as nothing more than a slave. Spiker is described as tall and thin - almost emaciated - with steel glasses. Both she and her sister Sponge are vain, each singing praises of their imagined beauty while they are in fact repulsive, but each attacks the other's repulsiveness. James never hears either Aunt Spiker laugh out loud during his three years with them. She meets her end when she is crushed to death as the giant peach rolls over her. In the 1996 film, she and Sponge survive being crushed by the peach and pursue James to New York. However, James finally stands up to them and ties them up with the Spider's thread. The police then take them away.

• Aunt Sponge - A lazy, greedy, selfish, and morbidly fat woman, and equally as cruel and repulsive as her sister Spiker. Sponge is more gluttonous, thinking of eating the peach while Spiker seizes upon the money-making opportunities it will bring. Sponge is more or less dominated by Aunt Spiker, but attempts to save her own life instead of Spiker when she sees the giant peach rolling towards her. Nonetheless they trip up over each other and meet the same end, also in the 1996 film she also has the same fate as her sister.

• The Centipede - An anthropomorphic male centipede, depicted as a boisterous rascal with a good heart, he is perhaps James' closest friend among the insects, taking an almost brotherly role to the boy. He is generally optimistic and even brave yet also loud-mouthed and rash, which gets himself and his companions into some bad situations, but his powerful jaws also save them on a few occasions. It was the Centipede who set the peach in motion by biting through the stem which connected it to the peach tree. The Centipede has an ego for many things including being the only actual pest of the group and his number of legs (he claims to have a hundred, but as his nemesis the Earthworm points out, he actually has only forty-two). He often asks for help with putting on his many boots, or taking them off, or shining them. In the last chapter of the book and after the destruction of the peach, it is revealed that he becomes Vice-President-in-Charge-of-Sales of a high-class firm of boot and shoe manufacturers. In the 1996 film, like in the novel, Centipede is also an important role for James, but unlike the book, he has a Brooklyn accent and argues with Grasshopper rather than Earthworm. The film also implies he has feelings for the Spider, and at the end of the film he is seen running for mayor.

• The Earthworm - An anthropomorphic male earthworm who is more or less enemies with the Centipede, with whom he frequently argues. The Earthworm is depicted as a much less physical character than the Centipede, and with a much more bleak and pessimistic outlook which causes much of the trouble between him and the more jovial Centipede. The Earthworm is paranoid and has an extreme phobia of birds - although being an Earthworm, this phobia is not unfounded. He is also blind (having no eyes, like any earthworm), and often imagines that things are worse than they really are. The Earthworm does however become an unwitting hero when he begrudgingly saves himself and the other inhabitants of the peach. They use him as bait to lure in over five hundred seagulls, which are then tied to the stem and used to hoist the peach out of the sea and away from sharks. The Earthworm is not without a warm, affectionate side; he is seen to get along well with James. After this the Earthworm becomes something of a celebrity and appears on commercials and on television. A newspaper cutting at the end of the 1996 movie adaptation shows the Earthworm in an advert as a smooth spokesman for skin cream, wearing Stevie Wonder-type blind glasses with two attractive women standing by.

• The Old Green Grasshopper - An anthropomorphic male grasshopper, his personality has aspects of both the Centipede and the Earthworm, although he is generally more sophisticated (and certainly more optimistic than the Earthworm). The Old Green Grasshopper takes something of a fatherly role to James and is depicted as elderly, although he loves life more than the rest of the inhabitants of the peach and is a passionate musician, playing a violin from his own legs and providing music for his companions. In the last chapter of the book and after the destruction of the peach, it is revealed that he becomes a member of the New York Symphony Orchestra where his playing is greatly admired. In the 1996 film, his violin is an actual violin however. His career is the most like the novel next to the Glowworm, as all the other careers of the insects are vastly different.

• The Ladybird - A good-natured, motherly anthropomorphic female ladybird who takes care of James as if he were her son. She explains that the more black spots a ladybird has on the red shell, the more respectable and intelligent they are, and having nine spots, she is therefore very respectable and intelligent. In the last chapter of the book and after the destruction of the peach, it is revealed that the Ladybird, who had been haunted all her life by the fear that her house was on fire and her children all gone, married the head of the New York Fire Department and lived happily ever after with him. In the 1996 film, the Labybug becomes a well-recommended maternity nurse, and a newspaper clipping has the headline "Dr Ladybird delivers 1000th baby: Expectant mothers love Ladybird: Baby boom kids in expert hands", and tells that she is pioneering new techniques.

• Miss Spider - An anthropomorphic female spider not unlike the Ladybug in personality and generally friendly and decent in manner, described by Dahl as having "a large, black and murderous-looking head, which to a stranger was probably the most terrifying of all". She has particular resentment towards Spiker and Sponge - especially Sponge, who is responsible for the cruel deaths of Miss Spider's father and grandmother. Miss Spider makes hammocks using her webs for the rest of the insects to sleep in (the Earthworm uses a much longer bed than the rest). Her webs are very strong and it is her webs, along with silk from the Silkworm, which tie the flock of seagulls to the stem of the giant peach and enable it to be lifted out of the sea and into the air, escaping the sharks. In the 1996 film, Miss Spider is a more youthful, sultry version of her counterpart in the novel, and opens a nightclub called the Spider Club at the end of the movie. It is also shown that she may have feelings for the Centipede.

• The Glowworm - A six-legged, anthropomorphic female glowworm, she quietly hangs from the ceiling in the hollowed-out stone at the center of the giant peach and provides lighting for the interior of the fruit in the form of a bright green bioluminescence. An incessantly sleepy character, she doesn't speak often and is slow to move. Her ending is exactly the same in the 1996 film, where she saves New York from an enormous electric bill by illuminating the Statue of Liberty's torch.

• The Silkworm - A female anthropomorphic Silkworm. Often asleep, a possible reference to hibernation, she helps Miss Spider to make ropes for the seagulls. Silkworm does not appear in the 1996 film as a part of the Peach crew, but instead in James' dream sequence. Her appearance somewhat represents James.

• Rhinoceros - A mad rhino that escaped from a zoo and killed James' parents. The film uses the rhino as a recurring theme, mainly a symbol of James' fear and how he overcomes it. The film displays the rhino as a monsterous cloud-like creature, filling in for the absent Cloud-Men.

• Cloud Men - Are minor antagonists, who throw rocks and supplies at the peach after Centipede taunts them. They never appear in the film as a plot device, arguably replaced by a scene with skeleton pirates, but two cloud men appear dancing together in the "Family" number of the film.

References in the book to other Roald Dahl works

James and the Giant Peach possibly references Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the beginning and end of the novel (although its copyright date is 3 years earlier). When the peach rolls off the tree, it rolls through a "famous chocolate factory",a reference to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory (the illustration even depicts the word "WONKA" on the side of the building). Towards the end of the book, people in New York City accuse the passengers aboard the peach to be Whangdoodles, Snozzwangers, Hornswogglers or even Vermicious Knids. All of those animals (except the last) are mentioned by Willy Wonka to live in Loompaland, which is also the home of Oompa-Loompas. Vermicious Knids are extraterrestrials, and feature in the sequel book, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

the Film version

Although Roald Dahl turned down more than one offer to make an animated film of James and the Giant Peach during his lifetime, his widow, Liccy Dahl, consented to let a film adaptation be made in conjunction with Disney in the mid-1990s.^[4] It was directed by Henry Selick and produced by Denise Di Novi and Tim Burton, who both also had worked on the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas which was also a Disney project. The movie is a combination of live action and stop-motion due to costs.^[5] It was narrated by Pete Postlethwaite (who also played the wizard). The film was released on April 12, 1996.^[6]

There are numerous changes between the plot of the film and the plot of the book, although the film was generally well received. Liccy Dahl said that, "I think Roald would have been delighted with what they did with James."^[4] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a positive review, praising the animated part, but calling the live-action segments "crude."^[7] The movie was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score (by Randy Newman). It won Best Animated Feature Film at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival.

References

• ISBN 0-14-037156-7 (paperback, 1995)
• ISBN 1-55734-441-8 (paperback, 1994)
• ISBN 0-14-034269-9 (paperback, 1990)
• ISBN 0-394-81282-4 (hardcover, 1961)
• ISBN 0-394-81282-9 (library binding, 1961)

Works by Roald Dahl Children's novels The Gremlins (1943) James and the Giant Peach (1961) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) The Magic Finger (1966) Fantastic Mr Fox (1970) Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972) Danny, the Champion of the World (1975) The Enormous Crocodile (1978) The Twits (1980) George's Marvellous Medicine (1981) The BFG (1982) The Witches (1983) The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me (1985) Matilda (1988) Esio Trot (1990) The Minpins (1991) The Vicar of Nibbleswicke (1991) Children's poetry Revolting Rhymes (1982) Dirty Beasts (1983) Rhyme Stew (1989) Adult novels Sometime Never: A Fable for Supermen (1948) My Uncle Oswald (1979) Adult short story collections Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying (1946) Someone Like You (1953) Kiss Kiss (1960) Switch Bitch (1974) The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (1977) The Best of Roald Dahl (1978) Tales of the Unexpected (1979) More Tales of the Unexpected (1980) Two Fables (1986) Roald Dahl: Collected Stories (2006) Non-fiction The Mildenhall Treasure (1946) Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984) Going Solo (1986) Memories with Food at Gipsy House (1991) Roald Dahl's Guide to Railway Safety (1991) My Year (1993) Film adaptations Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) Danny, the Champion of the World (1989) The BFG (1989) The Witches (1990) James and the Giant Peach (1996) Matilda (1996) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Plays The Honeys (1955) Film scripts You Only Live Twice (1967) Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) The Night Digger (1971) Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) Television series Way Out (1961) Tales of the Unexpected (1979–88) See also Quentin Blake Roald Dahl short stories bibliography List of Tales of the Unexpected episodes