Dahl

Roald Dahl’s story were characterized by their unexpected endings, lack of sentimentality, and dark humour.

Having fought in World War II, Roald Dahl was obviously exposed to a lot of gruesomeness and death. Therefore, his poetry can come off with a lot of dark humour, because humour is a means of making light of something sinister. After being in the war, he probably believed that people needed to not take everything so seriously. I was surprised though, that in the poem, he made the joke of Little Red Riding Hood pulling out a pistol. I was surprised by the violence on the part of a female character.

It seems as if the audience was for both adults and children. Children in the sense that it is pedagogical, and adults in the sense that there is a lot of black humour. Dahl did seek to educate and discipline his children readers, the research says, but he also wrote for adults. Perhaps he made the poem so lighthearted because he wanted to preserve some of children’s naiveity and innocence, after getting much of his innocence and naivety destroyed in the war. Despite the dark humour, it seems as though the tale was meant to preserve some purity in children. The elements of sarcasm are meant for adults, though, such as the dialogue. According to the research, “children love his poems and stories because he writes from their point of view, and, in his books adults are often the villains or are just plain stupid.”

The children characters were often made gluttonous, like Augustus Gloop in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” They often have a serious lesson to learn, or punishment to suffer.
January 27, 2009 6:45 PM