Preview

Matilda, by Roald Dahl: Book Summary

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
765 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Matilda, by Roald Dahl: Book Summary
Matilda
By: Roald Dahl

Summary Matilda was born into a family where her parents cared little about her. She had to learn things on her own, and do everything by herself. She did not like the way her family lived their lives. She was much different from them. She showed many signs of being a genius, which was much different than her parent. They would try to get her to just watch T.V., but Matilda wanted to read. She started going to the library everyday when everybody would leave the house. It wasn't long before she had every book in the whole library read. Her father told her, "Every person should be punished for what they do." So she decided that she could "punish" her parents. She starts playing tricks on her parents and soon realizes she has special "magical" powers. At first she struggles to use them, but she gets a hang of them and uses them for good things sometimes, and bad things sometimes. Matilda is then allowed to go to school. There she has an evil headmistress, Ms. Trunchbull. Ms. Trunchbull is a bad, mean lady. She believes in intimidating her students to get the to behave. She has all different types of punishments. Today we would call these sort of things child abuse and definitely would not be allowed in schools. Matilda also has a very nice teacher, Ms. Honey. Ms. Honey is the first one to see Matilda's powers. One day Ms. Honey takes Matilda to her house and they become very close. Matilda admits to Ms. Honey about her powers and tells her she is confused about them and doesn't know why she has them. Ms. Honey keeps the powers a secret and helps Matilda with her family life throughout the story. Matilda realizes that Ms. Honey is very poor. Ms. Honey tells Matilda a long story about how her dad was rich, then her father dies and she is forced to live with her evil step-mom. Her step-mom does not treat her well at all, she basically makes Matilda her slave. Ms. Honey's stepmother turns out to be Ms. Trunchbull. This makes Matilda

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Summary of Bad Seed Play

    • 3161 Words
    • 13 Pages

    At the picnic, Christine tries to sound out Claudia Fern, the headmistress of Rhoda's school, about how Rhoda is fitting in and getting along. Miss Fern at first is effusive in her praise of Rhoda but then becomes evasive and abruptly excuses herself. Christine confesses at this point that Rhoda seems overly mature for her age, in a "disturbing" manner.…

    • 3161 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    These chapters highlight several important series. First, we have Matilda Robert who has been a whore since the beginning of part I, but she was always being consistent with the Rangers however, I did not foresee that by having Shadrach and Matilda together. Obviously, it happens. Moreover, we can feel how the other Rangers feel about Matilda feeling when Shadrach went to kill antelope. They did not really care about Matilda, and they even hope that she would be a whore again. Everyone can feel Matilda impression after being a whore for that and finally find a man, therefore, I feel like she is being genuine by her reaction and most people would have the reaction. One important is Call frustration after being caught by the Mexicans. He could…

    • 204 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Matilda is extremely selfless. When her mother contracted the Yellow Fever, Mattie would never leave her side. She was there to clean her and did anything she could do to help. The doctor and her mother however, did not want her to be around and exposed to the danger. She did not agree. “‘No!’ I stamped my foot on the floor. ‘You can’t send me away! I need to be here-I need to help! You can't send me away!’”(page 72). Although she decided to agree with her mom and left, Matilda would rather stay with her mom and die of the fever then go to the safe country. This shows a great deal of ambition and…

    • 567 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Throughout the book, Melinda has problems with her family. She is having trouble making friends at her high school, Merryweather.Her family doesn’t really talk to her, and they don’t really communicate at all with her family..Her family is disappointed in her because of her grades and test results.Furthermore, she has problems with her friends because she called the cops on them, and now they all hate her. Even worse, she has problems with her teachers.Her Spanish teacher is giving her problems, but she can’t even speak Spanish, so it’s…

    • 160 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In paragraph 13 her dad talks about homework from school and she pretends not to have her book called Watership Down. She doesn't like school and her father does. Another reason why they have different views is because in paragraph 21-22 she gets annoyed and goes to her room and pretends to read the book so her father leaves her alone. She uses her book as a coaster as a sign of…

    • 449 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The four Pensive children are evacuated to an elder professor’s home in the country during the Nazi air attacks on London. Lucy the inquisitive youngest child enters the wardrobe during a game of hide during a rainstorm. As she burrows deeper within the wardrobe she discovers she has fallen into the land of Narnia.…

    • 597 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Melinda Sordino is a just starting her freshman year at Merryweather High School and is not off to a good start . Before school started Melinda attended a party with her best friend which ended in her calling the police for reasons the reader learns throughout the book . Her year starts rough with her friends not speaking with her and her not speaking at all . She begins to become slightly depressed and caves into herself , when it is brought to attention that art is a way to escape her thoughts. The reader begins receiving hints as to what happened at the party and Melinda starts to talk less and less . The only person who she would consider…

    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    All people in the world during life are faced with problems that they have to face and persevere. In the book Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson the reader is introduced to a fourteen year old girl named Matilda who has to go through all that was described. When the novel first started Matilda is introduced to an easy life. But into the book things get bad for Mattie and her family because Matilda’s mother and grandfather get the yellow fever and her grandpa dies. Towards the ending of the book matilda was running the coffeehouse and doing everything that her mother was doing. Matilda is a dynamic character but one thing about her stays the same and she goes through many challenges. She is a dynamic character because she changes from lazy…

    • 826 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Mr Dolphus Raymond Quotes

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, is identified to the Finch children as the cranky old lady down the street who yells insults at the children. She torments them on everything they say and do; one day…

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In other words, she sees the looks teachers give her, and it inspires her to do better in her school work and prove to them that her image does not define her personality. Her mother tries to get her to act like the rich kid she is, but the more her mother tries, the more she rejects the idea and rebels. She wears black and dyes her hair unnatural colors to hide where she really comes from, a rich family. She also hides her love for playing piano because she does not want to be classified as a rich kid, but doing so gets classified as a punk or a goth. Antonia, the other main character, is classified as smart or a teacher’s pet, so a teacher’s pet and a punk; that is not usually the types that are best friends. In the beginning of the book, they did not even want to be seen together. By the end of the book , that did not matter anymore because they were proud of each…

    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Matilda was an unhappy coffee girl, but in the end became CEO of the Cook Coffeehouse. As stated in the text, “Giving my mother a bath felt upside down and backwards.” (Page 66) Matilda did not want to bathe her Mother. In fact she would do anything but that. Although she was scared, Mattie did not want to care for her Mother, she wanted it the other way around.As stated in the text, “I cradled her head in my arms.” (Page 238) In the end, Matilda showed that she cared for her Mother much better by caring for her Mother whom was weak and depressed at the death of William. Over the course of the novel, Mattie became a much more mature and is now considered an adult by many. Matilda gained many aspects of an adult in FEVER 1793.…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Plot to Fever 1793

    • 350 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Matilda Cook lives with her hardworking mother, grandfather, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and Eliza, a freed slave who works as their cook, in the apartment on top of their family coffeehouse in Philadelphia. Matilda ("Mattie") Cook is 14 years old with big dreams for her family's coffeehouse. When the yellow fever epidemic breaks out during the summer, people flee the city or die. Matilda realizes she has to fight for her own life and her loved ones.…

    • 350 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Simple Gift Text Analysis

    • 845 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Matilda by Roald Dahl is a story about a young girl who is very intellectual unlike her family who see her as a burden. She has to cope with a problematic life at home and at school with the headmistress Miss Trunchbull terrorizing the entire school. Along her journey she discovers an extraordinary power within herself that she uses to her advantage. A strong bond greater than that with her family is created between one of the teachers, Miss Honey and…

    • 845 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fever 1793

    • 717 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Matilda is also a good girl. She never disobeys her mother or walks around like, as people would put it back then, a whore. A dress that goes down to her feet and to her wrists is her daily outfit. Because of this, the boy she has her eye on, Nathaniel Benson, starts to flirt with her, saying “The day is mine, so I’m going fishing. Want to come?” (31). Matilda did not have to act out in such a way that she is looked down upon and has caught the eye of the…

    • 717 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The girl thinks she cannot trust her mother, she thinks her mother is plotting against her "to get me to stay in the house more, although she knew I hated it"(pg.195). She thinks her mother`s work is not as important as her father's. More importantly, inside work she finds "endless, dreary, and peculiarly depressing"(pg.194) and outside work "ritualistically important"(pg.194). In the stories she tells herself every night, she fills them with heroic moments of her being the heroine in these stories, shows how she intends to become someone who makes a difference in the world. While she wishes to become the heroic woman of her dreams, it is the opposite of the stereotypical girl her family insists her to become. As she struggles to find her identity, she is expresses her identification with a horse called Flora. Furthermore, Flora is a beautiful, powerful and rebellious horse who is for fox meat, but escapes from the farm and when the girl is able to stop her she lets Flora go. Subsequently, the girl did not close the gate, but left it open so she could freely escape "I did not make any decision to do this, it was just what I…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics