Feminism within Roald Dahls Childrens Book, The Witches

Introduction


Like all of Roald Dahls books, The Witches is a highly entertaining and humorously sarcastic look at many of the fears and realities that children face. As the title indicates, this particular Dahl story is about witches. From this simple understanding we know that the tale is about women, for only women are witches, males are warlocks. With that perspective in mind the following paper examines how one could look at Dahls story from a feminist perspective.

The Witches


It should be noted, first and foremost, that while can argue many different perspectives in an examination of this story, the perspective being offered is one that indicates Dahls book is a very negative look at feminism and at women in general, providing a somewhat derogatory understanding of who women are.


In understanding how Dahls work seems negatively directed at women we first look at the fact that women have, perhaps throughout history, been ne...