The Witches

Dahl’s satirical tone continues with Bruno Jenkins. The Grand High Witch demonstrates the product’s effectiveness—the mouse potion—on him. The witches become parodies of business people who take over hotels and hold conventions or conferences to show off their latest innovations.

Bruno himself advances the satirical tone. The lead witch describes him as a “rrree-pulsive smelly little boy” (105). The boy’s account of Bruno shows Bruno’s greedy attitude toward food. This can be interpreted as biased against fat people, much like the depiction of Harry Potter’s cousin and antagonist Dudley Dursley in Harry Potter and Augustus Gloop in Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who falls into the chocolate river due to gluttony.

The narrator of The Witches says:

Meet him in the hotel lobby and he is stuffing sponge cake into his mouth. Pass him in the corridor and he is fishing potato crisps out of a bag by the fistful. Catch sight of him in the hotel garden and he is wolfing a Dairy Milk Bar and has two more sticking out of his trouser-pocket (107).

Bruno’s unflattering characterization continues when the narrator notes how he burns ants and brags about his dad’s wealth. He says: “Bruno never stopped boasting about how his father made more money than my father and that they owned three cars” (107). The motif of class returns. In Dahl’s story, rich people are often unpleasant.

By having Bruno be the witches’ first victim of the mouse formula, Dahl arguably reigns in their evil. Bruno doesn’t deserve to turn into a mouse, but Dahl suggests that his gluttonous, boastful conduct doesn’t make him a sympathetic victim. For Dahl, Bruno doesn’t symbolize pure, innocent childhood.

The witches’ evil diminishes again when the Grand High Witch acknowledges the ancient ones. The witches are a community. They are a family, though not a benevolent one. However, they do show care for one another: The Grand High Witch understands that some of the witches are older and can’t gather the ingredients for the potion. The top witch doesn’t want the older witches to be left out, so she makes formulas for them. Similar to Grandmamma, the Grand High Witch sacrifices. She’s evil, but not entirely foul. She can emphasize and put others before herself. She’s also tolerant. She doesn’t banish the older witches. She keeps them around and active in service. Nonetheless, the top witch’s good is not benign—it’s in service of evil.

Dahl uses imagery to show the chaotic scene where the witches capture the boy. He details how the witches corner the boy, grab him, cover his mouth, and pinch his nose. To convey the boy’s transformation into a mouse, Dahl includes an extensive simile. He compares the boy’s metamorphosis to something else using ”as.” The boy says: “I felt as though I was a balloon” (122). He then repeats words like “twisting” and “smaller” (123) to highlight his mutation and impact on his human body.

The boy’s optimistic attitude about being a mouse connects to Appearances and the Fluidity of Identity. He has no problem with being a different creature. The boy thinks: “What’s so wonderful about being a little boy anyway? Why is that necessarily any better than being a mouse?” (125). The boy’s thoughts also link to the idea of tolerance and diversity. He believes in equality and doesn’t think young people are better than rodents. 

Bruno, too, eventually welcomes his new identity; it means he can continually eat food. The narrator brings back the motif of class when he suggests: “Maybe your rich father will get you a special little mouse-fridge all to yourself” (128). Bruno’s parents symbolize intolerance, as Bruno says they won’t like that he’s become a mouse. They don’t want diversity or different creatures. Dahl juxtaposes Bruno’s exclusionary parents with the narrator’s accepting grandma. While Bruno’s mom is “terrified” of mice—beings different from her—Grandmamma is the opposite. The boy tells Bruno: “My grandmother will understand perfectly” (129).

Grandmamma continues to symbolize good. She doesn’t dismiss her grandson, and eventually embraces his new identity. She assures him: “Of course I’ll look after you” (134). Grandmamma’s welcoming attitude connects to tolerance and The Importance of Family, Teamwork, and Love. She accepts the metamorphosis and helps her grandson devise a plan to sneak into the Grand High Witch’s room. The plan advances the story’s thriller elements. The boy becomes a spy on a mission, and his grandma is his support team.