73 pages • 2 hours read
Roald DahlA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
The witches subvert unequal gender norms that often apply to women. The narrator says real witches “dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women” (9). Witches use the appearance of women as a disguise—“what makes her doubly dangerous is the fact that she doesn’t look dangerous” (11). In other words, witches appear as normal women because society doesn’t think that women pose a threat. In her legal memoir, Bad Lawyer (Grand Central Publishing, 2021), the writer and cultural critic Anna Dorn says, concerning women: “The only role we are entitled to play is the victim; this is the role we’ve always played” (unpaginated). The witches use society’s misogynistic idea of women to their advantage.
The narrator declares: “A witch never gets caught” (11). Their spotless record relates to their apparent gender. Society doesn’t suspect them because people regularly underestimate women. They don’t think women can be something else—something powerful or predatorial like witches. The witches manipulate sexist gender norms to hide their identities. They’re beyond gender—they “are not actually women at all” (32).
Grandmamma destabilizes gender norms. She smokes cigars like a powerful man, stands up to men like the hotel manager and Mr.
By Roald Dahl
Beware of the Dog
Roald Dahl
Boy: Tales of Childhood
Roald Dahl
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
Roald Dahl
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
Roald Dahl
Danny, the Champion of the World
Roald Dahl
Esio Trot
Roald Dahl
Fantastic Mr Fox
Roald Dahl
George's Marvelous Medicine
Roald Dahl
Going Solo
Roald Dahl
James And The Giant Peach
Roald Dahl
Lamb To The Slaughter
Roald Dahl
Matilda
Roald Dahl
Skin
Roald Dahl
The BFG
Roald Dahl
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
Roald Dahl, Illustr. Quentin Blake
The Landlady
Roald Dahl
The Magic Finger
Roald Dahl, Illustr. Quentin Blake
The Twits
Roald Dahl
The Way Up To Heaven
Roald Dahl
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
Roald Dahl