things considered, a more pliable infant could have finally been convinced that reading habits and education in general would not bring anything good to her life. Fortunately, this does not happen, since there is an opposite end of the spectrum that encircles characters like Miss Honey (or Matilda herself) and counterbalances the aforementioned approach. In contrast to Miss Trunchbull, Miss Honey is presented both in the novel and in the film, as a young teacher who cares about her students, and helps them learn with motivating and creative techniques. Dahl defines Miss Honey as “lovely and fragile” and a polite young woman “adored by every small child under her care” (Dahl, 1988; 2016: 60–61). She is an understanding teacher who cares for her students and treats them with love and respect. As opposed to Trunchbull, Miss Honey has studied to be a teacher at a Teachers’ Training College. In the chapter “Miss Honey’s Story”, the book reveals how she could not study a university degree because her aunt, Miss Trunchbull, did not allow her to enroll. In addition, Dahl describes here how Miss Trunchbull managed to take everything Miss Honey should have inherited when her father died and she became her legal tutor. The Trunchbull treated Miss Honey as a servant, she probably beat her, and therefore she lived in fear and felt like a slave when she was a girl.
Because of the cruelty of the story, Miss Honey’s life is portrayed in a different manner on the screen. The way Dahl describes the teacher’s way of life and her past can be considered quite harsh for the audience of a family film. Through Dahl’s account, we learn Miss Honey lives in absolute poverty. Even though she works at the school, almost all her wages go directly to her aunt as, according to Miss Trunchbull, she owed her for having fed her all those years. She only gives Miss Honey one pound per week; therefore, she has to live in a farm-laborer’s cottage with no running water, electricity or furniture. She has no money for food, just for tea and some bread, while her aunt lives comfortably in Miss Honey’s house. All this might be (extremely) appalling for the intended audience of the motion picture and, for that reason, in the film adaptation Miss Honey’s life is not as hard. She has gone to college and become a teacher, she lives in a modest house but has everything she needs, and when she tells Matilda that Miss Trunchbull is her aunt, most of the details in the book about her life as a child are omitted or reduced to facts like Miss Trunchbull being strict, hiding his father’s portrait or not letting her eat her favorite chocolates.
Either way, Miss Honey is presented in both accounts as the counterpart of Miss Trunchbull and, consequently, she represents a good influence for children regarding good educational habits. As opposed to Trunchbull’s disrespectful and abusive methods, Miss Honey treats her students with respect, and she applies motivating techniques which help them acquire new knowledge, as learning through poetry, having posters and the children’s work on the walls, working in groups, and creating a good classroom atmosphere so that students feel comfortable and willing to learn.
As for the brilliant and extraordinary little girl that appears on screen, she shares several similarities with her literary counterpart. In this vein, both in the book and in the film, Matilda shows her love for books and teaches herself to read, write and do mathematics. She takes care of herself and becomes an independent little girl because her parents do not pay any attention to her, and when they do, it is just to criticize her behavior. In the same manner, Matilda is in both cases presented as a polite, determined and articulate character with an adamant attraction towards learning and going to school. Her passion for books and studies makes her admire Miss Honey and consequently criticize her parents and Trunchbull, and it is precisely her hate of the injustices that stem from the prejudicial educational models certain adults seek to impose what leads her to try to counteract them.
4.2.2 Adult’s abuses and school mistreatment
The previous description epitomizes another pillar of Dahl’s social criticism: adults’ abuse of power and school mistreatment. This is something suffered by other characters apart from Matilda, so this section will describe some relevant examples regarding adults’ misbehavior towards children and how the impact of such conduct leads the main character of the book and her cinematic alter ego to react against them. In both products, the two issues introduced in the heading are once again embodied by Matilda’s parents and Miss Trunchbull.
Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood’s behavior towards Matilda is unbearable for her. She is constantly yelled at and told that she is a liar, an ignorant or a stupid girl when she says something intelligent or when she criticizes her father’s dark business. Regarding Miss Trunchbull, she is the other example of adults’ misbehavior towards children. Actually, Matilda’s parents and Trunchbull have several common aspects in how they treat our protagonist and it is even more emphasized in the film. For instance, at some point the film when her father is angry, he tells Matilda the following words to show her inferiority “I’m smart, you’re dumb. I’m big, you’re little. I’m right, you’re wrong and there is nothing you can do about it” (DeVito et al., De Vito, 1996: 16:16). Similarly, and to make more noticeable for children that they are the antagonists, Miss Trunchbull uses almost the same exact words when she is reprimanding Matilda: “I’m big and you’re small and I’m right and you’re wrong and there is nothing you can do about it” (DeVito et al., De Vito, 1996: 50:18).
As Matilda’s parents, Miss Trunchbull also yells instead of speaking, uses abusive language and acts cruelly with those who contradict her, or just stand in her way. Both in the film and in the book Trunchbull is the protagonist of several passages in which she verbally and physically abuses the children in the school. The most notable examples in the novel are the day when Trunchbull throws a student through the window because he is eating licorice, the day she takes a little girl, Amanda, from her plaits because she does not like them and throws her with such a strength that the girl is sent out over the fence and out of the school premises, or when she lifts another student from his ears because he has given a wrong answer to a question. But maybe the most shocking one is the episode with Bruce Bogtrotter and the chocolate cake. The boy has apparently eaten a piece of cake which was Trunchbull’s. Now, she makes him eat an entire huge chocolate cake in front of all the children in the school. The kids’ reaction and the final outcome of this episode is of paramount importance in the story, and it is further discussed in section 4.2.3.
Even though the film reproduces some of these episodes, Miss Trunchbull’s physical violence against children is slightly modified in some cases or omitted in others in what could be seen as an attempt to adjust the tone of the movie to its potential target audience. An example of the former would be the case of “flying Amanda”, which in the film has a more sugar-coated ending: after she is thrown by Miss Trunchbull, the child lands softly in a flower field. While she is sliding on the flowers, she takes a bunch of them which she lifts up to show her partners that she is fine. As for the omissions mentioned before, the book describes more violent scenes that were not included in the film due to their brutality, a decision that helps prevent the shock numerous aggressions against children could cause in an audience watching a PG rated movie. There are two clear examples that were overlooked in the film that can be found in Dahl’s account when Miss Trunchbull visits Matilda’s classroom. Firstly, she lifts a boy by his hair until he gives the correct answer to a maths question and then lets him go so that he ends up hitting the floor. In the second instance, Miss Trunchbull takes another student and holds him aloft by his ears until he is able to spell a word correctly.
Regardless of whether they affect her or some of her classmates, Matilda’s reaction against the outrages committed by her parents or Miss Trunchbull is always the same. Both in the book and in the film, these abuses spark one of the protagonist’s most distinctive features: her role as an avenger who seeks to punish adults’ misbehavior.
4.2.3 Rebellion against power: Children strike back
The previous list of events triggers another pivotal issue in Roald Dahl’s story: kids’ rebellion against adults’ attitudes and grievances. In this section, we will focus on analyzing how Matilda fights back adults’ misbehavior towards her and other
