Giants
Giants is the metaphorical term which Dahl applies to adults as seen through from literal physical perspective of children. Adults tower over children and there are usually more of them. The addition of these very numerous tall people telling them what to do and don’t do all the time invests them with many of the attributes associated with giants in nursery stories and fairy tales.
The Enemy
The persistent stream of orders emanating from these Giants to these much smaller and more defenseless versions of them eventually and inevitably has the effect of creating conflict. The result of this conflict is that Giants transform into something else again: The Enemy. This transformation even extends to loving Giants like parents, caretakers and the more loving teachers.
Kids
Metaphorically speaking, kids don’t come off a whole better than the adults. While adults are characters as Giant Enemies, Dahl doesn’t spare his harsh version of the truth in stereotyping the tykes they dominate:
“When you are born you an uncivilized little savage with bad habits and no manners” for whom discipline by adults “is all part of the process of turning the uncivilized and savage little child into a good citizen.”
Negation Through Simile
Dahl engages the easy comparison of the simile in the manner opposite to the usual approach. Instead of using “like” or “as” to draw a parallel between two different things, he make a comparison to highlight the dissimilarities which are of significant matter:
“It takes a high-speed train one and a half miles to come to a stop from 125 miles an hour even if the driver brakes hard! A train is not like a car.”
Metaphor as Prescience
Dahl utilizes a common metaphorical image to cement the idea of how much automobile traffic had grown to diminish the significance of train travel. But within the metaphorical imagery lies a prescient vision of the future that has quite literally come to pass:
“The flood of motor-cars and lorries and trucks onto our roads in recent years is a tragedy for nature and for the environment and for our health.”
