Power and Economics with Miss Honey

Conventionally, stories about victimized children feature adults coming to the rescue. In Matilda, it is the child’s supernatural powers which result in the economic liberation of the adult. Interestingly, the political balance in the story is aligned with economic power.

The following section will illustrate how impoverishment is closely associated with subjugation. Although to the child, Miss Honey is the Madonna figure, she remains quite powerless in her negotiations with Miss Trunchbull and the Wormwoods. The narrative suggests that her powerlessness is associated with her economic helplessness. As a child, her diabolical aunt, Miss Trunchbull had robbed her of her inheritance. As a result, she “became so completely cowed and dominated by this monster of an aunt” to the extent that “by the time [she] was ten, [she] had become her slave” (199). The word ‘slave’ is then indicative of her state of absolute disempowerment.

The relationship between money and liberation is further elaborated in Miss Honey’s first, minor victory from her enslavement. Miss Honey’s liberation from the domestic sphere was only possible after she gained employment. As Matilda astutely puts it, her “salary was [her] only chance of freedom” (201). However, Miss Honey remains under the jurisdiction of Miss Trunchbull within the public sphere. This is manifested through Miss Honey’s “salary (being) paid directly into (Miss Trunchbull’s) bank” (201). Succinctly, Miss Honey’s meagre wealth only buys her a fraction of power from her aunt.

Miss Trunchbull’s dominance over Miss Honey is possibly a matter of physical size, age or institutionalized authority. When we factor Matilda’s supernatural power into this study of power relation, Dahl’s construction of power and economics becomes clearer. In terms of build, age or her position in the school, Matilda is clearly overshadowed by Miss Trunchbull. Miss Trunchbull’s threat to “remove [her] belt and let [Matilda] have it with the end that has the buckle” allows one to see how truth and intelligent arguments are also powerless against Miss Trunchbull (164). By this process of elimination, it is quite clear then, that it is Matilda’s power is the crux that contributes to the disabling of Miss Trunchbull’s regime. The importance of power is underscored here.

With the literal collapse of Miss Trunchbull, the “prostrate giant” brings about a restoration of Miss Honey’s finances—“the property and the money could (then) be transferred into [Miss Honey’s] name” (228). In the above two examples, we see that whether for personal or altruistic purposes, power is essential in the wrestling for monetary gain.

In my above analysis, I have shown how wealth legitimizes power and how the objective of power is to procure wealth. The dualistic association between wealth and power is common to Marxist schools of thought. It is important to note that the child-reader has been, like Matilda, initiated into this mode of approaching power relations even whilst they are reading supposedly light literature. As I will also attempt to show via other Dahl’s stories, even though perceived as simple to adult critics, is embedded with concerns and frameworks which are accurate representations of the real world.