The Magic Finger

The Gregg family is composed of Mrs. Gregg, Mr. Gregg, and their two sons. The sons, William and Philip, are eleven and eight years old respectively. The family lives next to the unnamed narrator and moves through the narrative as a single unit. None of the Greggs have unique characteristics or traits; Mr. and Mrs. Gregg do not even have first names. The Gregg family can be treated as a single entity who err, are punished, and then are forgiven by the novel’s end. Mr. Gregg is the patriarch. He is given the greatest number of lines and orders his family around. Mr. Gregg’s change of heart about hunting marks a new chapter for the family.

The narrator tells the readers that “the one thing that Mr. Gregg and his two boys loved to do more than anything else was to go hunting” (8). Mr. Gregg, William, and Philip bond by doing this every weekend. All the Greggs, except for Mrs. Gregg, hunt: “Even Philip, who was only eight years old, had a gun of his own” (8).

Mr. Gregg feels entitled to hunt on the property around his farm. He is appalled when the transformed ducks try to shoot him. He says: “We are allowed to shoot ducks!” (46). When the ducks demand to know who allows them, Mr. Gregg says: “We allow each other” (46). Mr. Gregg’s selfishness fades when he is placed in a position of vulnerability. His transformation allows him to empathize with the ducks and animals who live in the wild.

The helplessness he feels when faced with the armed ducks gives Mr. Gregg a new perspective. Only by stepping into the shoes of the animals he used to hunt does Mr. Gregg understand his cruelty. At the end of the novel, the entire Gregg family is significantly changed. This shift is marked when Mr. Gregg changes the family’s last name to “Egg,” a symbolic gesture that echoes the steps taken by each family member. They destroy their guns, feed wild birds, and bury the animals they killed the day before. 

The four ducks act as a foil to the Gregg family. A foil displays the profound differences and similarities between two characters. In this case, Dahl uses the “four enormous wild ducks” to showcase how similar humans and animals are (28). Dahl also uses these ducks for comic effect. While the Greggs have been reduced in size and given wings, “[t]he ducks were as big as men, and what is more, they had great long arms, like men, instead of wings” (28). The ducks and the Greggs have switched places.

The ducks enter the Gregg’s home and invade every corner of their lives. Each duck has a human counterpart, with two parent ducks and two children. The ducks cook in the Gregg’s kitchen, play with William and Philip’s toys, and sleep in their beds. They pretend to hunt the Greggs. Other than the mother duck, “three of them were holding guns in their hands. One had Mr. Gregg’s gun, one had Philip’s gun, and one had William’s gun. The guns were all pointing right up at the nest” (44). The reversal of roles between duck and human show the Gregg family their hypocrisy and lack of empathy humans often have for Mother Nature.

While the Greggs have never shown mercy to animals in the past, the ducks are willing to accept Mr. Gregg’s apology. They show him mercy and believe that he will carry out his promise to destroy all his guns and never hurt another creature. As a foil to the Greggs, the ducks show compassion that the human characters did not. Dahl comments on the kindness and virtuosity of animals in his characterization of the ducks. 

Mrs. Winter is the narrator’s teacher. She is depicted as being unkind to the protagonist, calling her “a stupid little girl” (11). Mrs. Winter’s berating enrages the narrator, and she begins to feel the Magic Finger working. Soon, “Whiskers began growing out of [Mrs. Winter’s] face!” (12). The teacher eventually grows “a tail as well! It was a huge bushy tail!” (13). This transformation from human to cat foreshadows the events of the novel. The Greggs too will shift into animals. 

The narrator does not reveal what happened to Mrs. Winter after the incident but tells the reader, “if any of you are wondering whether Mrs. Winter is quite all right again now, the answer is No. And she never will be” (13). The narrator does not sound apologetic. However, she reveals that she has tried to keep from using the Magic Finger since.