KidLit Forum

Mice as a motif in Roald Dahl's "The Witches"

Mice are, clearly, a very important part of The Witches: the climax of Dahl's story is almost 100 witches turning into a mass of brown mice before a crowd of onlookers. Mice are first mentioned when the boy uses them as a reference point in a description of his grandmother; he says that she filled up her armchair so much that even a mouse couldn't fit in it with her. After that, as the boy and the grandmother's stay at the hotel approaches, she buys him two white mice that he names William and Mary and starts to train them to do tricks. While the boy is training them, he is always kind to them and is never scared. As a rule, the adults in Dahl's story are scared of mice and children are not, though the grandmother is a notable exception to this rule. In the end, Bruno, the boy, and all of the witches are turned into mice. The boy analyses whether life would be better as a person or a mouse, and decides that life as a mouse may be better because there is no school and no wars.
As a reader, I personally, find the presence of mice in the novel very naturally. As people have invented so many ways to kill mice, it is almost common sense to transform whatever in a mouse and have at hand a way to get rid of it immediately. Both witches and mice are just as unpleasant to us so the only difference in the ease to kill them is their size and lack of power.
From the point of view of the mouse fearing adult, I completely understand grandma and the others, but can't help myself to admire the child's intuition and in the end common sense... just like the Puss in Boots did to defeat a stronger enemy.