73 pages • 2-hour read
The Witches
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Themes
The Importance of Family, Teamwork, and Love
The theme of family anchors the story, and is introduced in the first paragraph of Chapter 2 when the narrator tells the reader: “The fact that I am still here and able to speak to you (however peculiar I may look) is due entirely to my wonderful grandmother” (14). The boy is alive because of his grandma—a family member. In Dahl’s novel, a family doesn’t need a mom, dad, or siblings. Dahl presents the family of The Witches as a two-person/creature unit. The boy’s family consists of him and his grandma, and they like it that way: “[Grandmamma] allowed no one else into the house, not even a servant or a cook. We kept entirely to ourselves and we were very happy in each other’s company” (203).
The grandma’s role in the boy’s life is crucial. She teaches him about witches and accepts him when becomes a mouse. The boy’s role in his grandma’s life is also crucial. He helps her put into practice her witchophile intelligence. Together, they work to take down the evil witches. In the future, they plan to remain bonded as they travel the globe and smoke out witches.
The novel’s exploration of family ties into the theme of teamwork. The boy and the grandma are more than relatives: They’re a duo. They share the same family tree, and they’re united in their determination to battle the witches. Each member of their team plays a pivotal role. Grandmamma teaches the boy about witches, and her lessons help him realize witches surround him in the ballroom. She also lowers the boy into the Grand High Witch’s room, brings him into the dining room, and figures out where the Grand High Witch lives. The boy nabs a bottle of the mouse-transforming formula and puts it in the kitchen. Although the boy’s duties involve most of the action and danger, it’s hard to claim that he could have pulled off the mission on his own. He needs Grandmamma on his team.
Love is a pivotal part of family and teamwork. The grandma tells the boy about witches because, as she says: “I love you and I want you to stay with me” (17). Her love for him brings him into the world of witches, and to fight the demons, the grandma and the boy form a unit. The grandma sticks by the boy after he becomes a mouse. The boy says: “My grandmother is a human, but I know for certain that she will always love me whoever I am” (126). When Grandmamma asks the boy if he minds being a mouse for the rest of his life, the boy replies: “I don’t mind at all. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like so long as somebody loves you” (207).
Love is central to the story. It’s a powerful glue that keeps the boy and his grandma a family and team. The novel shows how, in the absence of love, families become peevish and fractious, like Bruno’s family or the family of witches.
There is also a dark side to teamwork: The family of witches tries to work together to eliminate children, and the Grand High Witch manifests the spirit of teamwork when she makes formulas for the older witches.
Good Versus Evil
The battle against the witches brings in the theme of good versus evil, with the witches symbolizing evil, and the boy and his grandma representing good. The boy spends Chapter 1 warning the reader about the infernal nature of real-life witches. Foul thoughts consume them. The boy explains: “A REAL WITCH spends all her time plotting to get rid of the children in her particular territory. Her passion is to do away with them, one by one. It is all she thinks about the whole day long.” (7). Witches are hateful and murderous—they’re “easily the most dangerous of all the living creatures on earth” (11). The witches’ diabolical nature is highlighted by their appearance—hidden by wigs and shoes—and deception. They pretend to be lovely, harmless women, so they “don’t look dangerous” (11). Yet nothing is as nefarious as the witches. The boy sees their frightful bodies and faces in the ballroom, and Grandmamma implicitly compares the Grand High Witch to “the Devil” (43).
Conversely, the boy and his grandma are portrayed as good due to their positive traits and emotions. They are imaginative and loving and want to protect the innocent, like the children of England. At the same time, the behavior of the boy and Grandmamma reveal the complexities of good versus evil. Like the witches, the boy and Grandmamma engage in cunning behavior. The boy infiltrates the Grand High Witch’s room and sneaks into the kitchen. Grandmamma conceals the boy’s mouse identity and tricks the police chief into giving her the assumed name of the Grand High Witch.
Yet the boy and the grandma’s wily behavior revolves around an admirable goal: extinguishing witches. The witches’ surreptitious conduct centers on a wicked goal: harming children. The theme of good versus evil helps show how good people and bad people can often use the same means to reach drastically different ends.
The witches’ sinister scheme to eradicate the children of England implicates adults and connects grownups to an iteration of wickedness. The Grand High Witch plans to turn the kids into mice and let the adult teachers take care of the rest. The Grand High Witch explains: “Teachers is all rrrushing and rrrunning out and getting mouse-trrraps and baiting them vith cheese and putting them down all over school!” (90). Thus, the teachers become the executioners.
Dahl isn’t saying that most adults and teachers are as evil as the witches, but he does suggest complicity. In the story, adults—like Mr. Jenkins— routinely lack imagination and tolerance, and such deficiencies make them liable to inadvertently perpetuate abominable schemes. As the boy and Grandmamma have imagination and tolerance, they’re ready to fight evil.
Appearances and the Fluidity of Identity
The boy, his grandma, and the witches embrace fluid identities. In the story, whether the character is good or bad, identities tend to change. The boy transforms from a boy to a mouse and becomes “a sort of mouse-person” (139).
Dahl complicates the theme of identity by linking it with physicality. Grandmamma suggests the boy has the same identity but a different appearance. She tells him: “You’ve still got your own mind and your own brain and your own voice,” concluding: “You are a human in mouse’s clothing. You are very special” (139). The boy retains his identity—his thoughts and agency—but gains a new physique. Though he is essentially himself, looking like a mouse impacts his abilities and who he is. He can do things like sneak into the Grand High Witch’s room and the kitchen. Looking like a mouse also makes him unique. The novel suggests that way a person looks may not be the most central part of their identity, but influences it.
The witches use appearances to create an ostensibly harmless identity for themselves. The narrator says real witches “don’t look dangerous” (11), and that a witch “might even be your lovely school-teacher who is reading these words to you at this very moment” (12). Thus, fluid identities can be dangerous and threatening. Witches can go back and forth between being seemingly kind women and evil demons. About the Grand High Witch, the grandma says: “Wherever she went, people simply knew her as a nice lady” (211).
Alternately, it’s possible to argue that witches don’t have fluid identities. Deep down, they are always evil beings—when they’re out in the world, they just hide it under a misleading appearance.
Grandmamma doesn’t turn into a mouse, and she isn’t a witch pretending to be a woman, but she shows how identity can change when appearances stay the same. Grandmamma embodies multiple identities: She’s a grandma and a witchophile. She’s also queenly. The boy says she looks “majestic in her armchair” (16). She can participate in spy-like operations and sound like a man to procure valuable information. Through Grandmamma, Dahl shows how having a malleable identity can create a world of possibilities. In contrast, the other adults don’t seem to embrace fluid identities. Their worlds are narrow and limited. They don’t understand that children can be mice and benevolent women can be witches. Their limitations make them less complex.
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