Roald Dahl's name conjures images of magical chocolate factories, telekinetic little girls and cunning foxes – but beneath the whimsy lies a deliciously sinister thread. His stories come with cruelty, vengeance, grotesque humour, and the uncanny.
And children adored him for it. In a world of sanitised children's fiction, Dahl carved a niche with stories that celebrated rebellion, punished the wicked with creativity, and allowed children to reclaim agency in the most unexpected ways.
His books mirrored the fears, joys, and mischiefs of childhood – and that often meant going to dark, uncomfortable places.
This is not a story about nostalgia or magic. It is a story about how Roald Dahl taught children — and adults — that monsters don't always hide under beds; they often sit around dinner tables.
The allure of the macabre
Dahl didn't shy away from the grotesque. In fact, he embraced it.
In James and the Giant Peach (1961), James's parents are killed in a surreal rhinoceros accident, and his aunts are later squashed by the peach.
The violence is absurdly cartoonish, yet palpable, a form of dark escapism.
As people continue to argue over the topic of whether this kind of literature is good for children, child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim explained in his seminal study, "The Uses of Enchantment", that the macabre in children's literature serves an important cathartic function.
"Without such fantasies, the child fails to get to know his monster better, nor is he given suggestions as to how he may gain mastery over it. As a result, the child remains helpless with his worst anxieties – much more so than if he had been told fairy tales which give these anxieties form and body and also show ways to overcome these monsters," he wrote.
Cruelty served with a smile
Few authors pair sadistic punishment with gleeful detachment like Dahl. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), the misbehaving children face grotesque comeuppances: Augustus Gloop sucked into a pipe, Veruca Salt dumped by squirrels, Violet Beauregarde turning into a blueberry, and Mike Teavee reduced to a TV image. Willy Wonka watches impassively, even remarking that Violet will need juicing.
Between October 1972 and October 1973, The Horn Book Magazine was caught up in a heated debate sparked by Eleanor Cameron's criticism of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She called the novel "sadistic" and "tasteless."
Yet, Dahl defended his approach, arguing that forbidding children from violence undermines literature's purpose. He believed kids could process repulsion and relish the authorship of moral retribution.
Adults as villains
In Dahl's universe, it's usually the grown-ups who wreak havoc.
In Matilda (1988), parents despise her wit, and Miss Trunchbull tortures pupils in the "Chokey". In James and the Giant Peach, Aunt Sponge and Spiker embody malice and oppression.
In a BBC article, The Times children's book critic Amanda Craig highlighted what she described as "a streak of rather unpleasant misogyny" in Roald Dahl's writing.
From a Freudian perspective, she explained, female characters are often divided into two extremes: either warm and nurturing, like the "supportive, luscious peach", or wicked and cruel, like the evil aunts.
This simplistic duality, she argued, is something children are already familiar with. "Dahl is picking up the baton of the evil stepmother and the fairy godmother."
Dahl's darkness invited many other debates. Critics have accused him of sexism, racism, and cruelty. The Witches was condemned for misogyny; Charlie faced criticism over racial depictions (original Oompa-Loompas were pictured as African pygmies).
In 2023, Puffin Books released "sensitivity edits," removing words like "fat," "ugly," and racial descriptors.
But many fans saw this as an unhelpful sanitisation of Dahl's very essence: his irreverence, subversion, and discomforting truths. Prominent voices also denounced the revisions as censorship.
"Roald Dahl was no angel, but this is absurd censorship,'' author Salman Rushdie wrote on his X account. "Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed."
Puffin Books responded by releasing original texts alongside updated ones.
The power of agency
Dahl's gift to child readers was agency. His heroes rarely wait for rescue, instead they orchestrate their fate. Matilda uses telekinesis to defeat Trunchbull. Sophie teams up with the Big Friendly Giant. James and his insect allies conquer their aunts. Even the mouse-boy in The Witches (1983) accepts his fate happily if it saves his grandmother.
Roald Dahl didn't patronise childhood. He gave children back their scream, their defiance, their joy in the grotesque. He showed that darkness doesn't have to terrify, it can liberate; that justice doesn't need mercy, it can just be clever.
In modern times, the impulse to sanitise Dahl's voice risks flattening the very tension that gave his work its bite. Dark stories don't damage children, they equip them. Faced with adversity, Dahl's characters fight back cleverly. And so can his readers.
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