Matilda

 Matilda: beating the back-to-school blues

WIth everyone going back to school and uni over the past few weeks I thought it an opportune moment to think about one of the most famous students in children’s literature: Roald Dahl’s eponymous heroine, Matilda Wormwood. 

Matilda is a young girl, curious about the world she lives in, the family she was born into, and the possibilities of her own power. She’s only very young, but she shows such a sensitive and open perspective on the world that you can’t help but be drawn into her story. Just as Matilda finds escape from her troubled family life in books at her local library, so too do we wonder what it might be like to go back to being a child finding our way in the world. But this is not a story just about a girl going to school; there’s an element of magic and fantasy, too. We can imagine how she manages to lift a pencil with only her mind, and we wonder whether we can do the same. We follow her schemes to challenge Miss Trunchbull and her family, and we imagine the ways we can also cause trouble, express our righteous anger, and feel as empowered as Matilda. Matilda’s magic gives her a means to change the things in her life which anger and upset her and, let’s be honest, many of us have been in situations where magic would’ve really sorted everything out very nicely. Alas, we can only live vicariously through Matilda. 

Matilda Wormwood’s magical telekinetic powers are perfectly set up to translate from Roald Dahl’s children’s novel to the stage as a musical theatre production. Not only that, but the setting of Matilda amongst caricaturish characters, beloved and reviled teachers and bright-eyed schoolchildren makes for an unforgettable cast. As Matilda grows up and experiences the world around her, all while battling her stifling home life, it seems that song is a natural way for her to explore her big feelings: finding her own voice, making sense of her life and the people in it, expressing herself freely into the void. Music, in Matilda, is escape. Music is her imagination taking flight. 

Though we may just see Matilda’s magic as a child’s imagined fantasy of power and agency, it’s still important to remember that her story and experiences can resonate with lots of people for lots of reasons. Not everyone experiences childhood neglect like Matilda does, but some people do. Certainly some people can understand her feelings of hopelessness and her desperation for escape. Some people would rather have tangible superpowers with which they can fix all their problems; some are happy to have music and the arts as their means of expression and emotional release. The setting of Matilda isn’t extraordinary in the way other Roald Dahl stories defy belief (like Wonka’s chocolate factory or a giant peach) but the ordinariness of Matilda’s life is what makes her so compelling to us.