"The Witches" Summarized & Analyzed

By Students' Academy

The story of the novel is set in Norway and England. A young boy and his Norwegian grandmother are the major characters of the novel. The book describes their experiences in a word where there are witches that hate children.

The book became very popular in a very short period of time after its publication, but it has frequently been banned. It was also said to be a sexist novel by some organizations.

All the negative characters or villains in the story are women. This is one of the major issues that some critics and reviewers raise.

"The Witches" Summarized & Analyzed
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Major Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Nov 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370430956

Students' Academy

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The Witches Summarized & Analyzed

Copyright

The Witches Summarized & Analyzed

Students' Academy

Copyright@2016 Students' Academy

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Chapter One: Introduction

The Witches by Roald Dahl was first published in 1984. It is a children’s fantasy novel. The illustrations in the book have been given by Quentin Blake.

The story of the novel is set in Norway and England. A young boy and his Norwegian grandmother are the major characters of the novel. The book describes their experiences in a word where there are witches that hate children.

The book became very popular in a very short period of time after its publication, but it has frequently been banned. It was also said to be a sexist novel by some organizations. All the negative characters or villains in the story are women. This is one of the major issues that some critics and reviewers raise.

Owing to frequent debates and bans this book became one of the most controversial books during the 1990s. For all that, this novel was the winner of the three major literary awards: The New York Times Outstanding Books Award, The Whitebread Award, and The Federation of Children’s Book Groups Award.

The novel was adapted into a highly successful movie in 1990. However, the movie’s story was a little different from the book.

The characters in the book are nameless, but in the movie they have been given names, and second is the changed ending of the story. In the book, the main character ends up as a mouse, but in the movie the main character returns in his original form. However, the author did not like the changes that were made in the movie.

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

The story revolves around an unnamed seven years old boy and his Norwegian grandmother. The boy lives with his grandmother. His parents had been killed in a car crash.

His grandmother is a wonderful storyteller. He loves the stories she tells, but he is extremely enthralled by one particular story that is about witches. His grandmother tells him that witches are horrific characters and they kill human children.

The grandmother also tells the boy that she knows about the five children who had been crushed by witches. She even explains to the boy how he can recognize witches.

The grandmother tells the boy about witchophiles, who hunt down witches. She tells him that she was also one of them but now she is retired. She describes her encounter with a witch.

During that encounter, the grandmother had to lose her thumb. She tells him that as a witchophiles, she was a failure because she was never able to kill another witch after losing her thumb.

The grandmother tells the boy that witches look like any human women, but they are actually demons. She describes that they have bald heels and they hide with wigs. They have clawed hands that they keep hidden with gloves.

According to the grandmother, witches