Sally's Adolescent Novel 1/5

The BFG

By Roald Dahl

Illustrated by Quentin Blake

The BFG by Roald Dahl (1989) is a narrative which tells the story of Sophie, a little girl from an orphanage. One night Sophie is snatched from the orphanage by a giant called the BFG, which stands for the Big Friendly Giant. The BFG was wandering the streets engaging in mysterious activities before he whisked Sophie away to Giant Country. Sophie is relieved when she learns that the BFG collects, catalogues and delivers pleasant dreams to young children. Although the mean giants who also live in Giant Country travel the country every night and eat people! Sophie decides the mean giants must be stopped, although she doesn’t think that the BFG and her alone will be able to stop them. Sophie then comes up with a plan to mix up a dream to tell the Queen of England what the mean giants are doing. The plan is successful and with the help of the Queen and the armed forces they are able to defeat the mean giants.

As discussed by Gamble & Yates (2008) narratives commonly follow one or more of the seven basic plots. The BFG displays common ideas from both the ‘overcoming the monster’ and ‘quest’ plot. This is demonstrated in the book through the quest that the BFG and Sophie go on in order to overcome the mean giants.

A key factor of this text that both develops the characters personality as well as allows the reader to analyze the language and grammar used is the BFG’s dialogue. The BFG ‘can’t speak proper English’ which establishes and innocent quality to his personality which creates a beautiful contradiction through the BFG’s huge size and presence in comparison to his child-like mind. This is shown in the text when the BFG states,

“I is tired” and when he asks “Is I right or left?”.

This dialogue also allows students to analyze the text and identify the errors that the BFG has made and describe why he is incorrect.

A crucial element to this text is the illustrations as they perfectly depicted the story and create a unified text, which engages the reader and sparks their imagination. The reader is also engaged through the language that Dahl has used as throughout the story as he introduces a range of ‘new words’ which include frobscottle, snozzcumbers and jabbscottled. All of these words engage the reader and allow them to become intrigued and simulated by the story and the ‘sillineness’ of the words. The mean giants names are also creative and engage the reader as they include descriptive names such as; The Fleshlumpeate, The Bonecruncher, The Manhugger, The Childchewer, The Meatdripper, The Gizzardgulper, The Maidmasher, The Bloodbottler and The Butcher Boy. All of these descriptive names describe the horrible characters and allow the reader to visualize the giants and their terrible behavior simply through their names.

This is a great text to be used with primary students and high school students as it can be explored in a variety of ways to suit the outcomes and needs of the students. The whimsical quality of this story allows teachers to promote creativity and imagination as well as develop literacy and language skills.

References:

Gamble, N. & Yates, S. 2008, ‘Narrative: Narration and Structure’ in Exploring Children’s Literature, SAGE, pp. 45-77.