#The witches roald dahl oil painting full#

Here are our favourite childhood books by him:ДЄ story about an extraordinarily four-year-old whose parents are crass, dishonest, self-centered, and plain mean. The Welsh author was referred to as вЂњthe most popular writer of childrenвЂ™s books since Enid BlytonвЂќ, according to Philip Howard, the literary editor of The Times, who was inspired by stories of trolls and witches present in the dark Scandinavian fables as told to him as a child by his mother. The illustrations light up the words and draw us further into the fantastical world the author has created for us.Roald Dahl was born 0n September 13th and to commemorate his birthday, we took a trip down memory lane! Blake Quentin has literally illustrated Roald Dahl's point about the difficulty of discovering a witch.Д«asically, this is not a book to be read online in some text-only format. Sure enough, on the opposite page, we find a picture of two women (neither of which seems very witch-like). In the first chapter, the narrator asks us: 'Kindly examine the picture opposite. In one case, Dahl and Blake work explicitly together, expressly intertwining the illustrations with the text. One of the coolest examples of this is the before and after visual of the Grand High Witch with her mask on and then off. When there are no words to truly describe an image вЂ“ which, with a literary talent like Dahl's, is not often вЂ“ Quentin Blake comes to the rescue. Also, for those of us somehow unfamiliar with the creatures described by Dahl, Blake shows us what a gruntle's egg, crabcruncher's claw, blabbersnitch's beak, and catspringer's tongue look like. Blake's black-and-white pencil drawings allow us to picture what a bald-headed, scab-covered, big-nostriled witch looks like. It seems silly to try to describe the illustrations in words вЂ“ they're illustrations for a reason вЂ“ but Shmoop couldn't leave them out of the discussion. The Witches may have been written by Roald Dahl, but his words come to life through the illustrations of Quentin Blake. With emphasis and repetition, images become more vivid and we can better picture a world where these strange things really do happen. And when a witch attacks her victim, sparks sure fly, but that's not all: 'Sparks fly. For instance, the Grand High Witch's voice didn't just rasp: 'It rasped. Maybe this is why, instead of mentioning things once, Roald Dahl likes to be more emphatic, repeating important ideas in various ways.

#The witches roald dahl oil painting full#

In a world full of strange happenings, we can very quickly forget that what we are reading about is 'the gospel truth' (2.9). and for that reason, give Quentin Blake, the illustrator, a little assistance. Even when they're not used to describe witches вЂ“ like when he says his grandma was a 'stiff as a marble statue' (14.7) вЂ“ the similes still serve to create super rich images in our minds. He says, for example, that the gums of the first witch he meets 'were like raw meat' (4.63) and he even uses a simile to describe the Grand High Witch's pronunciation of the letter 'r': 'She would roll it round and round her mouth like a piece of hot pork-crackling before spitting it out' (7.16).

Often, the similes (which are really just colorful comparisons that jump-start our imaginations) are used to describe the witches, which makes sense since they're not something we're familiar with as readers. (How do you like that simile?) We couldn't even begin to count the number of similes in The Witches вЂ“ they're everywhere. After all, he's as smart as a Nobel Prize-winning blabbersnitch. Comparing two unlike things is apparently right up his alley. As Simile-filled as The WitchesД«oy does Roald Dahl like himself some similes. Did we mention he uses a lot of exclamation points? Did we?! The playful style of The Witches makes it a lot of fun to read and, as always, keeps us feeling like kids, whether we are or not.

To add to the playfulness, Roald Dahl uses a lot of words having to do with amazement, like 'astonishing' (6.16) and 'marvellous' (18.31).

We also can't forget the made-up words that are then pronounced in a Grand High Witch accent, like 'bogvumper' (8.34) and 'grrrobblesqvirt' (9.41). Some of our favorites are tomfiddling (8.37), frumptious (8.55), and blabbersnitch (9.39). Roald Dahl is nothing if not playful, and we see this most clearly in his writing style. Playful, Simile-filled, Emphatic All Work and No Play Would Make Roald a Dull Boy