37 pages • 1 hour read
Roald Dahl, Illustr. Quentin BlakeThe Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1985A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pages 44-57Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 44-57 Summary
The window-washing crew suddenly stops moving. The Giraffe backs away slowly, and whispers to the Duke that a burglar with a gun is ransacking the room with an open window on the third floor. The Duke realizes it’s the Duchess’s room, where valuable jewels are kept. He cries, “Call the police! Summon the army! Bring up the cannon! Charge with the Light Brigade!” (45).
The Pelican dumps his washing water and flies through the open window, then flies back out and lands next to the Duke, the burglar trapped inside his beak. The Duke pulls a sword from his walking cane, and tells the Pelican to open his beak so he can run the burglar through. The Pelican refuses, and the Giraffe reminds the Duke that the burglar has a gun and might shoot them. The Duke doesn’t care, but suddenly, a loud bang erupts from the Pelican, and the Duke changes his mind and decides the bird should keep his beak closed.
The Giraffe tells the Pelican to shake his head to prevent the burglar from shooting his pistol. The Pelican shakes so hard that his head becomes a blur.
The Duchess rushes outside, crying that her diamond jewelry has been stolen. She’s a large woman who was once a famous opera singer, and she bursts into a sad song. Everyone knows the tune, so they join her in singing the chorus.
The police arrive, including the Chief of Police, and the Duke tells them that the burglar is trapped in the Pelican’s beak. The Pelican opens his beak, and the police grab the intruder. The Chief realizes the thief is the Cobra, “the cleverest and most dangerous cat-burglar in the world!” (53). The Duchess screams for her diamonds; the Chief pulls them from the Cobra’s pockets and hands them to the woman, who’s overcome with joy and faints.
The police take the Cobra away. The Monkey notices a bullet hole in the Pelican’s beak pouch. The Pelican says he won’t be able to hold water for cleaning windows, but the Duke says his chauffeur will patch it like a car tire.
Pages 44-57 Analysis
In these pages, Billy and the animals save the day by capturing a dangerous jewel thief; they thus endear themselves to the Duke and his wife. This section’s humor focuses on the Duke and Duchess of Hampshire, a rich couple whose overdramatic behavior and outbursts make the animals seem tame and polite by comparison. The Duke, apparently anxious to relive his younger, swashbuckling years, jumps at every chance to do battle, be it with the Pelican—whom the Duke briefly accuses of theft—or the thief trapped inside the Pelican’s beak.
When the Giraffe informs the Duke of the presence of a jewel thief, he literally calls the cavalry: “Charge with the Light Brigade!” (45). This is a nod to a famous poem, “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson—the British poet laureate who, in 1854, celebrated (in verse) the cavalrymen in a recent battle against Russian forces in the Crimean Peninsula. The Duke loves the idea of “manly battle,” and swings his walking stick like a sword—which conceals a literal sword that he pulls out when threatening the jewel thief. He insists that the Pelican open his beak so he can have at the burglar. However, his bravado disappears the moment the burglar fires his gun. The Duke is clearly more enthused by the idea of fighting than the real thing.
The Duchess is appalled by the theft of her jewelry, and engages in her own dramatics. She rushes outside and demands that the Pelican open his beak so her husband can kill the burglar. Both she and the Duke must be talked out of the foolish idea before someone gets hurt, and it takes the Giraffe and the Pelican to convince them to stand down. The animals’ deft handling of human characters adds gentle, wise humor to scenes of slapstick comedy.
Dahl enjoys poking fun at the two nobles, who alternate between selfish entitlement and, in the Duke’s case, warm generosity. They’re not morally bad people; they’re simply swayed by their social status. The Giraffe knows how to handle them, and alongside the lively Pelican and Monkey, manages to charm the couple. True courage lies with the animals, especially the Pelican. Billy also bravely rides inside the Pelican’s mouth, and he and the bird harvest the Duke’s best cherries despite his initial threat. In this section, the boy acts as an observer: He reports what he sees, but lets the animals show off their skills.
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