"The Landlady" and Other Short Stories Lesson Plan

If you think of “The Great Automatic Grammatizator” as a critique of an aspect of society, what might Dahl be critiquing specifically?

Students will likely point to one of four aspects of life (and the story) that Dahl may be critiquing: power, money, publishing, or technology. They could make a case that the story takes a critical look at all of these. For power, Knipe manipulates the situations in order to have power over Bohlen and the other authors. He does this in a way that is hard to justify as he is clearly doing harm. Knipe is strongly motivated by money, though he also wants fame. Some students may interpret this as a moral argument against greed. Dahl also...