Genre of Dahl's books
Fantasy
Roald Dahl creates the modern day fairy tales in his books. The reader is able to fantasize about the characters in the book and see the world from the viewpoint of the child narrator. Dahl's books become very powerful, optimistic and believable for children because they are able to live the life of the character and hopefully have a happy ending. Dahl's books always have a struggle between good and evil and he purposefully balances out the good and evil to then show that the good will always overcome the bad. I think that this is a great lesson that children reading his books will learn.
Roald Dahl creates the modern day fairy tales in his books. The reader is able to fantasize about the characters in the book and see the world from the viewpoint of the child narrator. Dahl's books become very powerful, optimistic and believable for children because they are able to live the life of the character and hopefully have a happy ending. Dahl's books always have a struggle between good and evil and he purposefully balances out the good and evil to then show that the good will always overcome the bad. I think that this is a great lesson that children reading his books will learn.
Themes in Dahl's books
Dark Humor
Dahl had a dark sense of humor. He gives the most detailed and gory descriptions about each and everyone of the characters. With these gory descriptions, Dahl livened up the book with his bubbly humor. Dahl found many jokes humorous that were also humorous to children. He used this knowledge to throw in funny jokes that only children would understand.
Child Narrators
In almost all of Dahl's books, the story is told from the viewpoint of a child. Dahl did this so that children could easily relate to the character in the book. He did this so that children could see the character act on their own and even act out again the wishes of adults. Children were able to see how independent the characters were in the stories and were able to act on that to learn to be more independent. Kids have the power to accomplish whatever their heart desires and Dahl did a great job at portraying this through the children narrators.
Adult Villains
In most of Dahl's stories, the villains are always adults. There isn't really a reason that Dahl did this but some people say that he did this based on his own experience with adults in his boarding school. Dahl tried to make sure that all children were portrayed as good, but with every good character, there needs to be an evil one. There are some kind adults in his stories as well, such as Miss Honey and the BFG. These kind adults are thought to be a reflection of Dahl's mother who he admired.
Outside Reflecting the Inner
In all of Dahl's books, the reader could easily tell who was a good character and who was a bad one. The bad characters were often ugly or fat, while the good characters were lovely and angelic. This allowed readers to soon find out who they would like to read and hear about and who was evil in the stories.
Dahl had a dark sense of humor. He gives the most detailed and gory descriptions about each and everyone of the characters. With these gory descriptions, Dahl livened up the book with his bubbly humor. Dahl found many jokes humorous that were also humorous to children. He used this knowledge to throw in funny jokes that only children would understand.
Child Narrators
In almost all of Dahl's books, the story is told from the viewpoint of a child. Dahl did this so that children could easily relate to the character in the book. He did this so that children could see the character act on their own and even act out again the wishes of adults. Children were able to see how independent the characters were in the stories and were able to act on that to learn to be more independent. Kids have the power to accomplish whatever their heart desires and Dahl did a great job at portraying this through the children narrators.
Adult Villains
In most of Dahl's stories, the villains are always adults. There isn't really a reason that Dahl did this but some people say that he did this based on his own experience with adults in his boarding school. Dahl tried to make sure that all children were portrayed as good, but with every good character, there needs to be an evil one. There are some kind adults in his stories as well, such as Miss Honey and the BFG. These kind adults are thought to be a reflection of Dahl's mother who he admired.
Outside Reflecting the Inner
In all of Dahl's books, the reader could easily tell who was a good character and who was a bad one. The bad characters were often ugly or fat, while the good characters were lovely and angelic. This allowed readers to soon find out who they would like to read and hear about and who was evil in the stories.