SuitabookThe Twits
Roald Dahl
- Reading
- Preview the book’s tone rather than presenting its behaviour as a model. Pause after especially cruel or humiliating moments, name the harm plainly, and compare the couple’s treatment of others with the monkeys’ cooperation.
- Themes
- Cruelty as comic villainy: The Twits are portrayed as exceptionally foul, scheming and cruel, using insults, violence, captivity and harmful tricks against people and animals. The book takes a critical view of this.
- Resistance and cooperation: Muggle-Wump and his monkey family are held captive and plan, with help from the Roly-Poly Bird, to escape and stop the Twits. The monkeys’ cooperation, quick thinking and the bird’s assistance are presented positively as a response to mistreatment.
- Appearance and representation: The book addresses appearance and representation; the detail of how it is developed remains unclear. The text distinguishes moral ugliness from physical characteristics, but the discussion also identifies representational tensions and possible stereotyping requiring careful attention.
- Worth knowing
- Consider reading alongside a child if they may find physical abuse, captive animals, dead birds, guns, beer, insults or naked-bottomed escape scenes upsetting. The nastiness and bodily humour are recurring features, not isolated details.