Children Stories
In reading a novel children are often captured by the vivid imagination that the author is able to create in their book. In writing for a child the author must some how capture the attention of the child so that the child has the will to read further. Roald Dahl has written numerous books such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches and Matilda whereby imagination plays a key role in capturing the child's attention. How is an author capable of incorporating imagination throughout a novel? Roald Dahl's novels are filled with imaginative situations, characters and devices that capture the attention of readers of all ages. To begin with, Roald Dahl creates numerous amounts of outrageously imaginative situations that make each one of his novels unique and exciting to read. For example, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Grandpa Joe expresses his amazement that "people are actually going to be allowed to go inside the factory"(p.21), which creates a tension in the readers mind of how incredible the chocolate factory actually is. The chocolate factory is where all the imaginative situations occur in this novel. The chocolate room is where Augustus, a fat boy that eats like a pig, is intrigued by the chocolate that flow
Roald Dahl also presents many imaginative characters, which help make his novels complete. For instance in Charlie and the chocolate factory, Mr. Willy Wonka, the owner of the chocolate factory, is a very suspicious character. Mr. Wonka is the "candy-making genius whom nobody has seen for the last ten years" (p.22). He surprises the world when announcing that he'll let five lucky winners visit his great chocolate factory. Or take the Oompa-Loompas a bunch of small men "no larger than medium sized dolls" (p.70) that are from a far away land called "Loompaland"(p.71). Even Mrs. Salt a geography teacher has never heard of this place. These miniature men are Mr. Wonka's little helpers sort of like Santa Clause's elves. Secondly, in The Witches, Roald Dahl sets us straight by saying that witches "dress in ordinary clothes"(p.7) and not in black cloaks. Witches have always been perceived as being women that wear black hats, black outfits and their main mode of transport involves riding on brooms but Roald Dahl looks at them very differently. He doesn't follow the traditional views but rather he establishes his own idea of what a witch is making it all the more imaginative. Furthermore, Roald Dahl refers to Bruno as a "mouse-person" (p.195) when he is radically transformed into a mouse. After much analysis it is fairly safe to say that there aren't many mouse persons present on the face of this earth. Finally, Matilda, has the horrendous character Miss Trunchbell, the principle of the school, who is malicious and is in fact a child's worst nightmare. Miss Trunchbell constantly grabs kids by their ears and hair inflicting great pain in any given situation. She is a former Olympic hammer thrower and sometimes perceives the child as being her hammer sending them "sailing like a rocket" (p.115) over the playground fence. Furthermore, Matilda is a little out of the ordinary. She is capable of performing a form of magic which, leads to the downfall of Miss Trunchbell. Matilda when performing her magic had eyes that glittered "like
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1370
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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