The Witches (book)

infobox Book |
name = The Witches
title_orig = The Witches
translator =


image_caption =
author = Roald Dahl
illustrator = Quentin Blake
cover_artist =
country = England
language = English
series =
genre = Children's
publisher = Sean Wally
pub_date = 1983
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print
pages =
isbn = 0141301104
preceded_by =
followed_by =
awards = Whitbread Book Award (1993)

The Witches is a book for children by Roald Dahl, first published in London in 1983 by Jonathan Cape. The book, like many of Dahl's works, is illustrated by Quentin Blake. Its content has made the book the frequent target of censors. It appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number twenty-seven. [ [http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/bbwlinks/100mostfrequently.htm American Library Association: "The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000"] .] For the 1990 film of the book, see "The Witches". The book was also adapted into a stage play.

Plot

The book's witches make up a well-connected organisation which aims to wipe out children. This organisation has branches in every country in the world, and is particularly powerful in the slate blue countryside of Norway. Everyone in Norway is particularly knowledgeable about witches, as Norway is where the first witches came from and is where they have their seat of power. The chapters in different countries are forbidden to communicate although the witches in each country are generally all friends.

At the beginning of the book, the evil of the witches is described and how each witch makes it a goal to vanquish at least one child a week. In a warm household, an orphaned boy (the book's narrator) is being lectured by his grandmother about how to recognise witches, otherwise he will not survive in this world. She tells him stories about five of her childhood friends, children who all fell victim to the evil powers of the witches:

* A girl who was given a poisoned apple by a witch and was trapped inside a painting for the rest of her life. (Solveg)
*A boy who woke up healthy one morning and had been turned to stone by the end of the day. (Harold)
*A girl who was turned into a chicken and kept as a pet by her family.
*A boy who was turned into a porpoise whilst swimming with his family. (Leif)
*A girl who simply vanished and was never seen again.

The grandmother describes how one can recognise a witch, although it would be difficult as they are as cunning as they are cruel. Although they look like human women, there are some small clues as to their true identity. The boy also implies that ghouls exist, although they are not as dangerous as witches.

The boy then has his first encounter with a witch. One day during the summer holidays, he is playing in his treehouse and spots a strange woman in black staring up at him with an eerie smile. He spots that she is wearing gloves, which all witches wear to hide their talons. He instantly becomes afraid and the witch attempts to coax him from the treehouse by giving him a snake as a (rather bizarre) method of enticement. The boy screams for his grandmother and the witch leaves. After breaking the news, both become terrified that there is a witch in their neighbourhood.

After the grandmother becomes ill, their holiday to Norway must be delayed and they move to a small seaside resort instead. They stay at a luxury hotel, where they discover that it is where the English witches have booked in to hold their annual meeting. At the annual convention of English witches (ironically disguised as a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children convention), the Grand High Witch, angry at the witches' failure to destroy all of the children in England, unveils her master plan: the British witches should purchase lots of sweet shops (using authentic banknotes given to them by the Grand High Witch who is able to reproduce the currency of any nation by means of a special machine) and give away chocolate. The chocolate will have been laced with Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker, which will change anyone who eats it into a mouse at a specific time. The witches are instructed by the Grand High Witch that the formula will activate at 9am the day after the children have eaten the chocolate, when they are at school. The teachers, she hopes, will panic and kill the mice, thereby doing the witches' work for them.

By chance, the boy is hiding in the convention room at the time training his pet white mice. After the witches unveil their true selves (removing their wigs to reveal chafed, bald scalps, their shoes to reveal toeless feet, their gloves to reveal long, sharp claws, and grinning widely with their mouths full of cobalt saliva) he quickly realizes the truth and attempts to stay hidden.

The Grand High Witch turns a fat child named Bruno Jenkins (lured to the convention hall by the promise of free chocolate) into a mouse as a demonstration of her potion secured in a tiny ultramarine-coloured bottle. Shortly after, the witches smell the narrator's presence (as children smell repulsive to witches) and promptly turn him into a mouse as well by giving him such a massive overdose that the formula works instantly.

The newly transformed boy manages to reach his grandmother's room safely, and together they hatch a plan to add the witches' potion to the green pea soup reserved for them at dinner. The witches all turn into mice almost instantly as they have each had massive overdoses. The hotel staff panic as the Grand High Witch predicted, and kill all England's witches in their form of mice. The boy and his grandmother then create a plan to use the potion recipe the witches created to attack the Grand High Witch's Norwegian headquarters. The idea is that they can turn all of the witches into mice then place a number of cats into the headquarters. That done, they would use the money-printing machine to pay all their expenses when travelling around the world getting rid of all the witches.

How to Recognise a Witch

Although the witches in the novel are able to disguise themselves as ordinary women, there are a few small hints that can enable a person to recognise a witch if they know everything about them.

*Witches are quite bald, but obviously wear wigs to hide it. Their scalps are chafed, and sore, and constantly itch due to being rubbed by the linings of the wigs.
*Witches do not have proper hands, they have thin, curved claws like a cat and wear the gloves to hide them. This has been altered slightly in the film version; in the film witches have gnarled, deformed hands rather than claws.
*Witches' eyes constantly change colour, but again in the film version this was changed; in the film, witches have purple eyes.
*Witches have no toes. Their just have wide, square ends which they squeeze into normal, pretty shoes. Although it does not hinder them much, you may notice them limping slightly as they walk.
*Witches have blue saliva and thus they never spit.

Miscellany

In "Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes", pea soup based on the food consumed by the witches appears as one of the recipes.

We never know what really happens to the boy's grandmother and why she has a missing thumb. There are suggestions that it was from an encounter from a witch when she was young. This is also mentioned in the film "The Witches (1990)", but again the cause of the disfigurement was not mentioned.

ee also

*Grand High Witch
*The Witches (1990 film)

References