Roald Dahl’s Use of The Extreme

By Jason Qin

Roald Dahl liked to use realism and surrealism as techniques to help deliver the story. Dahl uses realism to create empathy in his children’s books and unrealistic ideas in his adult short stories to keep his audience thinking. One example of this are the scenes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory before Charlie Bucket takes the tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. These scenes show the level of poverty Charlie’s family is going through: a harsh reality, but very realistic. However, there may be some hyperbole involved. One reason why I think that Dahl does this is to have the children that are reading this to root for Charlie and not the other kids who are depicted as disgusting and undeserving, outrageous and obsessive. However, there are many unrealistic concepts, like the Oompa Loompas. 

The Oompa Loompas are from this fictional place, Loompa Land, where they are forced to live on caterpillars and starve. They had a craving for cocoa beans even though they have never tasted one. Willy Wonka found them to work at his chocolate factory. Another example of this comes later in the book when they find the television. Willy Wonka reasons that television is the act of scaling things down, so he made a machine for that. This is unrealistic as it is impossible with 1960s day technology that they could do that: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is fiction, and not realistic fiction.

An example of Dahl’s surrealism in his adult short stories is “The Swan.” In the story, “The Swan,” the recklessness of Ernie and Raymond towards Peter is unrealistic. First, they throw him onto a train track and proceed to tie him to it. Next, since he didn’t die, they made him fetch their catch (a duck and a swan) after they illegally hunted in a bird sanctuary. Then, they shoot him in the leg. No one would do that just to make someone jump off a tree and try to fly. One reason why I think that Dahl does this is to address adult readers. Even though I think this wouldn’t happen, Dahl wanted to tell the world that bullying can go very far, so perhaps he witnessed or learned about such behavior. One connection I can make between Dahl’s children’s books and his adult short stories is that he likes to use hyperbole to help deliver the story.

Another example of Dahl’s surrealism in his adult short stories was the skill of the hitchhiker. No one can be that great of a pickpocket, or “fingersmith” as the hitchhiker likes to call himself. That skill would only come with supernatural abilities, and they are called supernatural because they are out of this world. Dahl used a made-up character to help the protagonist avoid getting fined for speeding, and that creates a more anti-police aura. Dahl gives the reader mixed feelings during the scene when the hitchhiker reveals that he stole the cop’s books, and the reader has to choose to celebrate with the narrator or be dismayed at the breaking of the law.

In the story, “Parson’s Pleasure,” Mr. Boggis is an antique furniture expert. Mr. Boggis finds a Chippendale Commode inside of the house of Bert, Claud, and Rummins. The Chippendale Commodes are these antique drawers, worth a lot of money. At the end of the story, Bert, Claud, and Rummins saw the legs off because Mr. Boggis said that he needed the legs, even though he wanted the whole thing. This is another example of Dahl’s taking extremes. Boggis is also obsessed with underbidding to an extreme, by deceiving the people who sell the antique furniture into thinking that their furniture is either worthless or a replica, like what he tried to do with the Chippendale Commode. It is this habit that is so extreme (as to be the unbelievable component that ties Dahl’s adult fiction to his children’s fiction, and which makes him unique. This is a realistic fiction story, as the Chippendale Commodes are real but the characters likely aren’t. So it seems that Roald Dahl tends to use fiction for children’s books and realistic fiction for his adult short stories, but he stretches both. He uses realism for children’s books to keep his readers hooked on his imaginative ideas. He uses realistic fiction because fiction just seems childish sometimes. And the crossover – did you know that in the children’s book Fantastic Mr. Fox, one of the horrible farmers is named Boggis? Well, Dahl also was dreaming up his idea for the BFG when he wrote Danny, the Champion of the World in 1970s – Danny’s father tells him all about the Big Friendly Giant; it wasn’t until 1980s that the full novel, The BFG was published.

Dahl figured out how to combine the realistic and surrealistic, which blend instead of clash. This ability allows him to create the stories.

(Mr. Watt’s note; high school only): For a truly surrealistic story, read “Georgy Porgy”.

In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he used realism to brew empathy between the reader and Charlie and used the opposite to describe the other children. Augustus Gloop, a rich, gluttonous slob who only cares about eating, himself, and filling that large tummy. Then there’s Veruca Salt, a spoiled rich snob who has conned her parents into an endless loop of giving her what she wants, leading her to her loss of possibly inheriting Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

Violet Beauregarde and Mike Teavee live lives that revolve around an inanimate object that is animated by humans, which they practically worship: gum and TV respectively. Then you have Charlie, a kid living in extreme poverty, and yet he is the closest one of them to being a normal person. As one Grampa Joe said, “I can’t wait to hear about which undeserving kid is going to be picked next.” Augustus, Veruca, Violet, and Mike all have the same fatal flaw: their greed. Everyone in the world of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory seems to be greedy, except Charlie and his family, Willy Wonka, and the shopkeeper, who sold Charlie the chocolate bar with a golden ticket. 

In the story, “The Hitchhiker,” Dahl uses surrealism to create the character, the hitchhiker. The hitchhiker’s supernatural ability is the main focus of the story, as he saved the narrator from a hefty fine. The realism, one would think, in this story would be brought with the cop. Thuggish and mean, the idea behind the cop’s traits is very realistic: some people easily view cops as power-hungry and power-abusing men who have no problem with bullying and terrifying people, but this police officer is almost a cartoon of a character. This story puts surrealism vs. realism to create an interesting conflict. Dahl took a surreal concept to battle against a very real problem. Through this analysis, I have realized that Dahl likes to address real problems through antagonists and sometimes even protagonists in his stories. They are just stretched by a mile sometimes. This surrealism vs. realism technique has also appeared in Matilda, a girl who uses telekinesis against her unaccepting parents and her bully of a principal.

I can conclude that Roald Dahl knows how to use realism and surrealism. In his children’s books realism gives a foundation to the wackiness; for his adult stories, surrealism conveys how wild can be our experience, and what a variety of extremes there are to be found. Because that is what fascinating and incredible writing is all about, isn’t it?