Summary
Matilda Can Do Magic!
The excerpt begins after Miss Trunchbull’s glass has fallen down—an event for which there seems to be no explanation. The story opens with Matilda revealing that she has a secret that she wants to reveal to a trustworthy adult. So, she approaches Miss Honey to speak about it. Matilda first tells Miss Honey that she is not responsible for putting the newt in the glass. Miss Honey says that she knew that. Matilda then confides in Miss Honey that it was really her who made the water spill. She claims that she moved it and forced it to tip, using her mind. Miss Honey does not believe her. However, she decides to gently show Matilda that she is probably imagining things by simply asking her to demonstrate it again. Matilda focuses on the glass and wills it to fall with her mind, thus leaving Miss Honey in shock. She invites Matilda home to have tea with her and promises that she will not reveal the secret to anybody else.
Matilda is a fantasy novel i.e. it contains elements that are purely imaginative and could never happen in real life. In this excerpt, the reader encounters fantasy in Matilda’s ability to move things around with her mind. The plot has been written cleverly so as to keep the reader in a state of suspense until the end. The writer has used very descriptive language to make the story come alive.
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was born on 13th September 1916 in a Cardiff district called Llandaff. Dahl’s parents were Norwegian. Nine years after his father had died, his family moved to Kent in England and Roald attended Repton School : he was just 13. After school, he decided that he wanted to travel (voyager). So he got a job with the Shell Oil
Company and two years later was sent to East Africa. In 1939, he joined the Royal Air Force (R.A.F.) and became a fighter pilot during World War II.
Dahl started writing in the 1940s. He married the American actress Patricia Neal in 1953. They had five children together but got divorced in 1983. He wrote some of his best books between 1975 and 1986 (‘Danny the Champion of the World’ in 1975, ‘Matilda’ and ‘The BFG’ seven years
later and ‘Boy’ in 1984). Roald Dahl died on 23rd November 1990 in Oxford, England.
MATILDA CAN DO MAGIC!
Understanding the Text
A. Complete these sentences
1. In order to help her make sense of what had happened, Matilda felt she must tell her secret to a wise and sympathetic grown-up.
2. Miss Honey became alert when Matilda said she wanted to talk to her, because her meetings with Miss Trunchbull and Mr and Mrs Wormwood about Matilda, had made her concerned about the child.
3. Matilda was worried that Miss Trunchbull was going to expel her because she believed that Matilda had put the newt in the glass of water.
4. Matilda said she made the glass fall over because she was angry at being accused of something she hadn’t done.
5. On seeing the miracle performed, Miss Honey stared at Matilda in shock and awe, unable to say a word.
B. Answer these questions
1. The astounding event that is being referred to is that Matilda had made a glass of water fall all over Miss Trunchbull, using the power of her mind. Matilda didn’t think she could tell her parents because they wouldn’t believe that she could have done this by herself in the first place.
2. The speaker wants Matilda to tip the glass over again She asks her to perform the action ‘again’ because she doesn’t believe Matilda could have done it and wants Matilda to realise that it is all part of her imagination.
3. Matilda concentrated the whole of her mind and her brain and her will up into her eyes, and once again but much more quickly than before she felt the electricity gathering and the power was beginning to surge, and the hotness was coming into the eyeballs, and then the millions of tiny invisible arms with hands on them were shooting out towards the glass, and without making any sound at all, she kept shouting inside her head for the glass to go over. It wobble, then it tilted, then it toppled right over and fell with a tinkle on to the table-top.
4. In saying that Matilda “seemed so far away”, Miss Honey means that Matilda had been so completely involved in performing the act of magic that it appeared to have transported her into another world altogether.
5. Matilda has the special ability to move things around with her mind. This special ability makes Matilda special because this is a supernatural power which no other child usually has.
6. The fact that Miss Honey gives Matilda the chance to prove herself even when she doesn’t believe her tells us that she is patient and understanding. We also learn that she cares enough about children to listen and consider their ideas and opinions. These qualities give us the confidence that she is just the sort of person that Matilda can confide in.
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