Contentment
Contentment—a state of satisfaction with one's life—is a dominant theme in the book. Although Danny's and his father's existence is humble, with nearly every day spent earning a modest income at the filling station, they are happy with the state of their lives. The contentedness that fills Danny's boyhood comes from the love his father lavishes on him, the things he learns about mechanics and the natural environment around them, and the fantastical stories his father tells in their cozy caravan. Danny and his father's state of satisfaction is briefly disrupted when his father breaks his ankle, but even with an injury, his father doesn't complain. Ultimately, their ability to appreciate what they have means it does not disappoint them when they lose the 120 pheasants they poached. The fact they have each other is enough for them.
Solidarity
Solidarity among members of a community is another major theme in Danny, the Champion of the World. Because Danny and his father live alone on a rural road, it may seem that they lack many social ties. However, as the story develops, Danny learns his father has special relationships with most other working-class people in their town, in large part because the community has a history of being united against Mr. Hazell. Most people in the community having once been poor, poaching was a necessary means of "putting food on the table." The community-minded spirit that arose from helping each other poach still exists, as Danny's father is immediately able to reach out for assistance when he and his son poach 120 pheasants from Hazell's Wood. From a taxi driver to a police officer to a doctor to a vicar, everyone is willing to help Danny's father conceal the stolen pheasants, knowing they will get to share in the spoils.
Defiance
The thrill that comes with defying rules is one of the book's dominant themes. While the tradition of poaching from local gentry began as a means of gathering food for starving townspeople, the tradition lives on largely because of the excitement poachers feel when they risk their safety to break the law. The fun of defying Hazell's authority is a motivating force for Danny's father, whose eyes sparkle as he discusses the very real possibility of being shot by a gamekeeper while out poaching. His animated body language initially seems paradoxical to Danny, but soon Danny discovers the satisfying adrenaline rush of sneaking around the woods. Ultimately, Danny's father's illicit excitement speaks to a childlike embrace of undermining the authority of someone more powerful than himself.
Deception
With Danny, his father, and the community of supporting characters all conspiring to deceive Mr. Hazell, deception is a major theme in Danny, the Champion of the World. The theme first enters the story when Danny learns his grandfather invented several methods to deceive both gamekeepers he avoided and pheasants he tricked with horsehair threaded into raisins and paper caps filled with glue. The theme arises next when Danny drives the Austin Seven to find his father. When he passes a police car on the road, Danny quickly pulls over and switches off his lights, successfully concealing his presence until the cop car rushes past. Dahl touches on the theme again with the revelation that Danny's father fell into a pit dug by the gamekeepers and hidden under a blanket of sticks and leaves. As revenge, Danny and his father rely on the network of other amateur poachers in town to pull off the ultimate deception, stealing Mr. Hazell's entire stock of pheasants before his shooting party begins.
Ingenuity
Ingenuity—the quality of being inventive and clever—is another dominant theme in the book. While Danny receives his title "the champion of the world" after inventing the "Sleeping Beauty" method of pheasant poaching, nearly every supporting character possesses a similar ingenuity. After the revelation that his father is a skilled poacher, Danny learns his grandfather was also a well-respected poacher in his day, having discovered pheasants' attraction to raisins and exploiting this fact with new poaching methods. Danny learns that Doc Spencer is also an ingenious poacher, having once perfected the art of tickling trout bellies. As the book goes on, instances of ingenuity continue to arise as it dawns on Danny that practically the entire town—including the vicar and his wife—is in on the poaching game.
Father-Son Bonding
The last and perhaps most important theme in the book is father-son bonding. From the outset, Danny emphasizes in his narration how his father has been nothing other than kind-hearted, imaginative, and playful. Even though Danny's and his father's lives are marked by the tragedy of Danny's mother's sudden death when Danny was a baby, the love father and son have for one another fills in the void she leaves. Although most of the book is preoccupied with the pheasant-poaching storyline, Danny returns in the final chapter to the subject of how much he loves his father. As they walk to town together and plan new adventures, Danny remarks that what he has been trying to tell the reader throughout the entire book is that his father is the most marvelous father a boy has ever had. With this conclusion, Dahl reiterates the centrality of father-son bonding to the book.
Social Status
The hollowness of elevated social status is one of the major themes in Danny, the Champion of the World. Living in a disused caravan behind their modest, two-pump filling station, Danny and his father are from a humble working-class background. Their small patch of land is surrounded by the vast estate owned by Mr. Hazell, a man with far more money than sense. Despite his poverty, Danny is a happy, well-adjusted child who desires nothing he can't have. He is ignorant of the power dynamics at play when Hazell is verbally threatening to him, not understanding that he is being treated poorly because of his lower social status. But status means nothing to Danny's father, who is quick to send Hazell away without any petrol. The theme of status arises again when Danny and his father seek to disrupt Hazell's annual shooting party, an event whose purpose is to give Hazell access to high-status dukes and duchesses. In the end, Hazell is humiliated when his silver Rolls-Royce—a symbol of his elevated social status—is ruined by the scratching claws on his own brood of pheasants.