[ SECRET POST #1771 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1771 ⌋


Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 07 pages, 157 secrets from Secret Submission Post #253.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - hit/ship/spiration ], [ 0 - omgiknowthem ], [ 0 - take it to comments ], [ 1 2 3 4 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I assumed that it was because, at the time Dahl set his stories in, teachers/authorities could do pretty much whatever they liked to children. For that matter, teachers didn't just have authority over pupils, they enjoyed status over most parents as well, by virtue of being 'educated' and 'professional'. It doesn't seem unreasonable to consider that, in an era where caning was commonplace, that children could be locked in cupboards, and be casually insulted and derided. The 'nails and glass' and whirling that girl around by her pigtails then become a sort of dark comic exaggeration of existing norms, not the horrific abuse they would be viewed as today.

[(Anonymous)]

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS. Locking in a cupboard and being forced to overeat was stupidly outlandish during a time when the preferred school punishment was the cane.

[fenrischained.livejournal.com]

Except that, yeah, but to a kid who didn't understand that it was comic exaggeration, it still broke my suspension of disbelief that nobody noticed the small child flying screaming through the air in an outside, presumably fairly urban environment.

I mean, where was this school, besides apparently miles outside any sort of residential area?

[(Anonymous)]

For me, the o_O moment was Miss Honey's rent - wasn't it something like 10p a week? Even for an unfurnished farmhouse, um - wow.

But re the child-putt, from what I remember (and it's been a long time since I read that book) she was flung over the playground fence/hedge into some fields adjoining the school. I don't remember anything about the schoo being in a particularly urban or build up area - was it? *memory fuzzy*

But considering that this girl had a mother who took the time to plait her hair in the morning, and who did it religiously every day - ie, a woman who didn't go out to work or have pressing chores in the house, likely the wife of a professional man, middle or upper-class - it's surprising that the Trunchbull chose her to pick on, a child whose mistreatment could have had unpleasant consequences for her. But Dahl books didn't tend to think along those lines.

[alice-alaizabel.livejournal.com]

Um, my mum plaited my hair every morning, and she had to go to work and do chores. "Takes the time to do something with your daughter's hair" does not mean "has nothing else to do."

Also, in a lot of primary schools, girls have to tie their hair back, so it just becomes part of the morning getting-dressed routine.

[(Anonymous)]

Didn't she get thrown into a garden? I always got the impression the school was in a suburban area (presumably near the Wormwood's house or business, since Trunchbull bought her car from there), as opposed to an urban area. But still...close enough for there to be nearby houses.

[murderershair.livejournal.com]

My mom braided my hair when I was in elementary school, and you bet she did loads of chores. It was sort of a thing called spending time with me? And anyway she used to braid while I was eating breakfast.

[sandor051.livejournal.com]

Dropping in to say this.

Though for some context, my father was literally at one point locked in a cupboard (and forgotten at the end of the day) by a teacher.

These are things that happened, and even within that, English boarding schools were renowned for being particularly strict above and beyond the national norm.

[(Anonymous)]

...

D:

Tell me someone let him out, and he wasn't there all night!

Am so, so glad I didn't live in those times D:

[sandor051.livejournal.com]

Soon as my grandmother turned up a couple hours after school to ask where her son was.

They were recent German immigrants in the late fifties which obviously made things worse, but yeah, how much standards have changed in even a single generation is sort of incredible.

[xerxes92.livejournal.com]

Yeah, schools a long time ago were a bit violent. A kid in my dad's class had his nose broken by one of the nuns because my dad ducked when she was aiming for him

[pendingprogress.livejournal.com]

Reading this reminded me of my dad telling me casually a few weeks ago that when he was in primary school (back in the 50s) he was put in a cupboard one day and left there. He was in reception so about four years old, and this was a school run by nuns.

He didn't stay there long.

Pic

[rebness.livejournal.com]

My dad went to a school in Liverpool in the 50s and tells me horror stories about his treatment by nuns there, including one who strapped him to a chair for the day!

[(Anonymous)]

I was so sad when I read about that. :(

Suddenly the snarkiness and morbidity in British humors makes so much more sense.

Teacher, leave those kids alone

[(Anonymous)]

Came here to say this.

This is the same school culture of fear, abuse and rigid discipline that we see in The Wall. It's a world that has all but disappeared that we simply can't comprehend from our vantage point of anti-bullying, zero-tolerance, safe-space schools.

Re: Teacher, leave those kids alone

[(Anonymous)]

My grandparents have told us stories. Truly, it was appalling. I don't understand how anyone learned in that kind of environment :(

[dgcatanisiri.livejournal.com]

There was also the fact that Dahl was writing about the British private schools, as opposed to the movie setting it in an American public school. Weren't there massive differences in the style the teachers would engage in at the time, which included corporal punishment?

[ruadragon.livejournal.com]

Everything I've heard about British schools and child rearing practices has me convinced that the British hate children.

[endis-ni.livejournal.com]

Of course we do! That's why the NSPCC was an offshoot of the RSPCA in the first place. Astonishingly, the NSPCC did manage raise more cash last year- £128m to the RSPCA's £114m, so I guess attitudes are starting to change.

[hopeandmemory.livejournal.com]

exactly. i've heard from family that my dad had the shit beaten out of him by a teacher once and my dad didn't even bother to tell anyone except one of his sisters because teachers were on this pedestal and i guess my dad figured his parents would think he deserved it anyway? and yet a similar thing happened to his cousin and my great aunt flipped the fuck out and had the teacher fired. sooooo. i guess it depended on how progressive your parents were.

ETA: i'm not english, my dad grew up in upstate new york in the 50s/60s/70s.

[(Anonymous)]

Same happened to me dad. He was about to get the cane, and he grabbed it from the teacher before he got hit. So the teacher went to town on his arms and chest.

When he got home, covered in bruises, he told his dad what had happened. His dad's response? "Man up and stop being a wimp"

His dad wasn't abusive or neglectful or anything. It was just normal for kids to get corporal punishment from teachers back then, and some schools were definitely harsher than others.

[elialshadowpine]

That was pretty much what I thought. Particularly when

TW: ABUSE

my Mom watched the movie with us and commented that it reminded her of her childhood. Particularly the scenes with the shot-put, because her mom would literally grab the kids and throw them like that into walls. They went to school every day in the 60s and 70s covered in bruises and gashes and NOBODY called child protective services. Not even when one of the boys got a pitchfork put through his leg. NOBODY CALLED.

Considering that, it didn't strike me as terribly unbelievable that it could happen in this scenario, either.

[kathkin.livejournal.com]

This.
Every time people say the level of discipline in Matilda is unfeasible I think of the anecdote in

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This.
Every time people say the level of discipline in Matilda is unfeasible I think of the anecdote in <i<Boy</i> about the kid who got caned until he bled by a teacher, lying on a sofa, while the teacher was simultaneously filling his pipe.

I think <i>Matilda</i> makes a whole lot more sense if you read <i>Boy</i> and see what Roald Dahl's own teachers were like when it came to discipline. xD

[(Anonymous)]

I seem to recall reading an extract from Boy for school in which he was caned and such, so it does make a lot of sense that he'd choose to write teachers like this.

[kathkin.livejournal.com]

There's at least two instances of him being caned in Boy. I think Matilda is just his own school experiences turned up to eleven.