73 pages • 2 hours read
Roald DahlThe Witches
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1983A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 15-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary: “The Mouse-Burglar“
In the Grand High Witch’s room, the boy notices a bad smell. It’s the same smell as the ballroom—it stinks like a public bathroom at the local train station. The boy sees a jumping frog and hears his grandma telling him to hurry. He thinks of where the witch might hide the potion. It’s not under the mattress, but the boy feels something hard. With his teeth, the boy rips a hole in the mattress and gets a bottle—the formula.
While dragging the formula, three frogs appear. The boy thinks the frogs were once kids. He asks them to identify themselves. Before the frogs can answer, the Grand High Witch returns, and the boy hides behind a bedpost. The boy hears the witch tell the frogs she intends to throw them out the window tomorrow night and let the seagulls eat them.
The boy also hears his grandma’s voice. The witch goes to the balcony and asks why there’s knitting hanging from above. The grandma says she dropped it. She tells the witch her grandson has been reading in the bathroom for hours. She asks the witch if she has any kids. The witch replies rudely and slams the door to the balcony.
A knock on the door comes from the ancient ones. It’s six, so they’re here to get their bottles. As the older witches slowly enter, the door stays open, allowing the boy to run out and up to his grandma’s room. He taps on her door, but she doesn’t answer. He shouts her name, and she opens the door. She’s very glad to see him.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins Meet Bruno“
It’s 6:10pm; the witches eat at 8:00 in the dining room. The grandma and the boy have less than two hours to figure out next steps. Grandmamma turns to Bruno, who continues to eat bananas. Grandmamma pulls him away from the fruit and puts him and her grandson in her handbag. She takes them to the hotel lounge to find Bruno’s parents. Even in the handbag, Bruno asks for food.
In the lounge, Mr. Jenkins reads a newspaper, and Mrs. Jenkins knits. Grandmamma tells them she has disturbing news about their son, and Bruno’s dad thinks it has to do with food. Grandmamma asks to speak to them privately, but Mr. Jenkins refuses. Grandmamma tells them their son is in her handbag, and her grandson saw witches turn him into a mouse. Bruno’s parents think Grandmamma is ill-advised. Grandmamma brings Bruno out of her bag and frightens his mom. Mr. Jenkins orders Grandmamma to leave them alone.
Chapter 17 Summary: “The Plan“
Back in Grandmamma’s hotel room, Grandmamma scolds Bruno for not using his voice and telling his dad his identity. Bruno explains he didn’t speak because he was eating. Grandmamma calls Bruno an unpleasant boy, and her grandson corrects him and says he’s an unpleasant mouse.
Grandmamma and the boy figure out how to put the potion in the witches’ food. The boy can’t sneak onto the table and sprinkle the potion on their roast beef, but he can go into the kitchen and put it in their food before the food comes out. He’ll have to listen to the workers to know the food that belongs to the witches. He also has to watch out for the workers—people in kitchens don’t like mice.
The boy practices unscrewing the top. Grandmamma says she’ll bring him down to the dining room at 7:30 and then let him go under the table. Bruno insists on accompanying them. He doesn’t want to miss dinner. The narrator is too excited to eat food.
Chapter 18 Summary: “In the Kitchen“
As Bruno eats another banana, the boy’s grandma reminds him that he has a tail, and it can help him climb around the kitchen.
In the spiffy dining room, Grandmamma sits at a small table. Two long tables occupy the center of the room: They’re the witches’ tables. The waiter asks Grandmamma about the boy, and she says the boy is sick. Grandmamma orders pea soup and lamb but tells the waiter to bring her sherry first. She pretends to drop something and lets the boy out of her handbag.
The boy runs along the walls and marks the witches’ arrival by their shoes. In the kitchen, the boy notices the steam, the banging of pots and pans, the shouting cooks, and the hurried waiters. The boy somersaults onto a handle and feels like a trapeze artist in a circus.
A waiter enters and informs the kitchen staff that a woman thinks her meat is too rough. The cook puts another piece of meat on her plate, and the cooks and the workers in the kitchen spit on it.
Another waiter enters the kitchen. All the witches want soup. The top chef says to put all their soup in a big silver tureen. Using his tail, the boy swings up to a high shelf, then stealthy moves across the shelf until he’s above the tureen. The boy pours the potion into the tureen before one of the cooks pours the soup into it and carries it away.
Thrilled about successfully completing his mission, the boy carelessly swings from the handles of the pans. The workers see him, and a cook swipes at him with a knife and cuts his tail. In pain and on the floor, the workers try to crush the boy-mouse with their boots. The boy hides in the pants of a cook, and the cook slaps at the boy. He escapes down the pant leg and hides in a pile of potatoes until the people in the kitchen return to their jobs. One of the workers says the older woman loved her new piece of meat covered in spit.
As a waiter carries out plates of ice cream, the boy leaves the kitchen and returns to his grandma. She’s proud of her grandson and bandages his tail with a handkerchief. Back in the handbag, Bruno eats a roll, and the boy observes the affluent diners. He sees the witches. He and Grandmamma realize they miscalculated the number of witches: There are not 200, but 84. There had been 85, but one got fried in the meeting.
Chapters 15-18 Analysis
Dahl reveals the unpleasant smell of the Grand High Witch’s room through comparison. The boy says: “It reminded me of the smell inside the men’s public lavatory at our local railway-station” (144). The foul odor of witches adds to their contemptuous characterization. The frogs contribute to the mysterious atmosphere of the witch’s room. It’s unclear why the frogs are there or if they were once people. The boy can hear his grandma telling him: “Hurry up. Grab the stuff and get out!” (146). Her warning adds to the suspense, and keeps the boy aware of his dangerous situation.
The boy’s thought process on the possible location of the bottles is an example of stream-of-consciousness prose. The reader can follow what’s going through the boy’s mind, and trace his logic and reasoning about the potion. Imagery helps the reader see how the boy obtains the bottle. Verbs like “tearing” show the reader what the boy does to the mattress.
The witch’s threats to the frogs reinforce her tyranny and provide further evidence that the frogs were once human. The grandma’s dialogue with the witch ties to The Importance of Family, Teamwork, and Love. She tries to help her grandson by distracting the witch. Dahl uses imagery to show how the boy manages to escape. About the ancient ones, the boy says: “They were coming in slowly and hesitantly, as though the owners of those shoes were frightened of entering” (151). Taking advantage of the timid woman, the boy “ran like lightning” (151). “[R]an like lightning” is a simile, where something is compared to something else using “like” or “as.”
Dahl uses Bruno to provide comic relief, such as his constant consumption of bananas, though it can be interpreted as fatphobic instead. The dialogue between Mr. Jenkins and Grandmamma showcases Grandmamma’s sensitive nature. She doesn’t come right out and say that Bruno has turned into a mouse. She doesn’t want to startle Bruno’s parents or make a scene. Grandmamma is circumspect and considerate. She tries to get the Jenkins in private, but the huffy Mr. Jenkins refuses.
Dahl demonstrates Mr. Jenkins’s nastiness through his diction. Mr. Jenkins calls Bruno a “little beggar.” He then calls Grandmamma a “silly old woman” and a “nasty cheeky old woman” (159). Mr. Jenkins is neither tolerant nor understanding. He lacks imagination and empathy. Neither he nor his wife believes the mouse is Bruno. Not every family symbolizes love and teamwork. Bruno’s parents, like most of the other adults in the novel, are negative.
The dialogue in the hotel room between the Grandmamma and the boy furthers the theme of The Importance of Family, Teamwork, and Love. They work together and talk through ways to get the witches to ingest the formula. Their brainstorming also furthers the motif of tolerance and diversity. Grandmamma and the boy are of different ages, genders, and species—the boy is a mouse or mouse person; she is human. Nonetheless, both are equal and play a crucial role in the plan.
Like a good spy or secret agent, the boy prepares for his mission in the kitchen. He doesn’t eat and practices unscrewing the top. Unlike Bruno, the boy is dedicated and disciplined. He wants the operation to succeed. The fate of England’s children depends on him. The boy gets the chance to be an unsung hero.
Dahl uses imagery to bring to portray the ritzy dining room. The narrator notes the “gold decorations on the ceiling and big mirrors around the walls” (166). Dahl also uses imagery and exclamation marks to build the chaotic environment of the kitchen. The boy says:
The noise! And the steam! And the clatter of pots and pans! And the cooks all shouting! And the waiters all rushing in and out from the Dining-Room yelling the food orders to the cooks! (170).
Adults continue to act unbecomingly when the kitchen staff spits on the woman’s meat. Conversely, Dahl may not want the reader to feel too bad about the woman. The boy says the hotel guests are “all well-to-do people” (185). The motif of class returns, with the working-class kitchen staff messing with a wealthy patron. Her socioeconomic status might make her less sympathetic.
To show how the boy gets around the kitchen, Dahl uses imagery. He details how the boy’s tail helps him climb and swing across the space. Blake’s illustrations also illustrate the boy’s mobility. Like Bruno, the narrator gets carried away. He has too much fun, and the coarse and indelicate kitchen staff cuts his tail and tries to crush him. Like Bruno’s parents, the adults in the kitchen aren’t tolerant. They don’t want a mouse in their space.
Grandmamma showcases her love and care by bandaging the boy’s tail. Dahl allows the grandma and the boy to have faults. Both overestimated the number of witches in England. Dahl may make them fallible to make them seem more real and human.
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