His witches must be horrifying creatures to underline his hero’s heroism. In this book, witches are characterized as figures of horror - baldheaded, claw-fingered, toeless women, their deformities hidden beneath pretty masks, fancy wigs, white gloves and pointy shoes.Īlthough I have written a book arguing for the rehabilitation of the witch as a descendant of the great mother goddess of the ancient world, I can certainly see what Roald Dahl is up to here. In his latest book, The Witches, a 7-year-old orphan boy, cared for by his Norwegian grandmother, discovers the true nature of witches and then has the misfortune to be transformed into a mouse by the Grand High Witch of All the World - a horrifying creature with a bride-of-Frankenstein face concealed behind the mask of a pretty young woman. “Road Dahl knows every bit as well as Bruno Bettelheim that children love the macabre, the terrifying, the mythic.
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