Boy: Tales of Childhood Essay Questions

Why does Dahl often return to the subject of being hit with a cane?

Late in the book, Dahl comments on something the reader must have noticed: that he spends a lot of the book detailing instances in which he and his friends were punished by school officials. At the time Dahl was a child, school corporal punishment was legal in Britain. As a result, headmasters and teachers violently struck their students with rattan canes, hitting them hard enough to draw blood and, according to Dahl, cause damage to their bottoms that would last the rest of their lives. While some officials may have convinced themselves that the physical and mental pain would ensure students behaved themselves, Dahl, as both a child and later as an adult, cannot believe the sadism these authority figures demonstrate. Rather than train him to obey rules and be deferential to hierarchy, they turn Dahl away from English social life entirely, leading him to take a job with Shell Oil that will ensure he travels for work. Even though he finds escape, Dahl will forever live with the traumatic memories of his time at school, refusing to accept that such a barbaric practice was considered normal.

Why is it significant that Dahl watches his old Headmaster crown Queen Elizabeth II on television?

When describing the Headmaster of Repton Prep School, Dahl remarks on the irony of seeing the clergyman Headmaster eventually be promoted through the Church of England ranks to become Archbishop of Canterbury. As the head of the Anglican Church, it is the ex-Headmaster's duty to put the crown on Queen Elizabeth II at her televised coronation in 1953. The moment is significant because Dahl knows that the supposedly holy man used to viciously beat pupils at Repton. Dahl sees it as hypocritical when a clergyman like the Headmaster preaches religious moral ideals of forgiveness and compassion one day while exercising his power cruelly over defenseless children the next. It is because of this disconnect between words and actions that Dahl first begins to doubt the teachings of the church and question the existence of God.

What role does grief play in Boy?

As a major theme in the book, grief plays a significant role. The theme arises with the death of Harald's first wife, Marie. As destabilizing as her death is, Harald moves on with his life and marries Sofie, Dahl's mother. However, tragedy strikes the family again with the death of Astri, Harald's favorite daughter. While mourning Astri, Harald develops pneumonia, and rather than fight the illness, which at the time can only be cured through rest and willpower, Harald dies himself. Although Dahl is only three when his sister and father die, he speculates that his father's sorrow was so intense that it took away his will to live. Occurring so early in Dahl's life and in the book, the deaths loom over the rest of the text, providing a backdrop of grief to every story. However, Dahl's family makes the most of their situation in life, cherishing each other and the time they have.

Why does Dahl return so often to the subject of medical treatments?

While the average person reading Boy will likely have experienced doctor's visits and maybe even surgeries in childhood, those medical experiences are likely much more safe, sanitary, and pleasant than Dahl's in the 1920s. The subject of undeveloped medical practices first comes up when Dahl comments on his father's mistreatment for a broken arm in the late 1800s. The drunk country doctor's incompetence resulted in Harald having one of his arms amputated. The fact that penicillin isn't widely available yet means that Dahl's sister and father both die of illnesses much more easily cured in the modern day. While Dahl's own encounters with doctors aren't as devastating, he endures his fair share of pain. Without warning, a rural Norwegian doctor cuts out Dahl's adenoids without administering anesthetic. Dahl comments on how it was common in his youth for surgery to take place in people's unsanitary homes, and without pain-numbing injections. Just as the since-outlawed practice of caning lingers in Dahl's memory, the trauma of his medical history means his memories keep returning to the subject.

In what ways is Boy a book about resilience?

Although much of Boy details traumatic experiences from Dahl's childhood, he and his family maintain a spirited sense of resilience. Dahl's ability to recover from difficulties is conveyed through his playfulness and love of freedom. The quality seems to have been learned or inherited from his mother and father. When Harald loses his arm at fourteen, he refuses to let the disability hold him back, quickly developing adaptive strategies and joking that the only drawback is that he can't cut the top off an egg. Sofie is similarly resilient: after Harald and her daughter die within weeks of each other, Sofie is determined to stay in the UK and fulfill her husband's wishes for their children's education. Sofie also exhibits her resilience when her daughter crashes the family car. Sitting in broken glass with a bloody handkerchief keeping her son's nose barely attached to his face, Sofie maintains a sangfroid attitude as she directs her traumatized daughter to drive them into town. The accident is echoed at the end of the book when Dahl speaks of being shot down while flying in WWII. He crawls out of the burning wreckage and is in the air again only six months later. With this anecdote, he ends the book by reminding the reader of humans' almost magical ability to recover from devastation.