The Magic Finger is one of Roald Dahl's many works that examines the way humans mistreat the environment around them. The story revolves around a family being shown the cruel impact of their hunting trips and ultimately renouncing the practice altogether. The reader comes to see that the young narrator, with her passionate feelings about the natural world around her, has been right the whole time. Dahl's other writing often returns to this idea, as he depicts scenes of a natural world disrupted by human cruelty and greed. Several of his other books explore this idea at length, while hitting many of the same notes as The Magic Finger.
Published in 1970, Fantastic Mr Fox is the story of a smart fox named Mr Fox and his family. Mr Fox comes up with a plan to rob three rich, mean-spirited farmers. He doesn't tell his wife about this, as she made him swear off heists when they got married and started a family. He succeeds in stealing from him, but the farmers vow revenge on the whole burrow and use heavy machinery to dig up the area. This puts many animals in danger. They hide deep in the burrow and wait out the bulldozers. Three days pass and they begin to starve. Mr Fox hatches a scheme to steal food from the farmers. After a harrowing trip, they return with a bountiful feast. They decide to remain in the burrow. Mr Fox says he and his friend Badger will hunt food for the whole community from then on. The farmers wait for the animals to return, but to little avail, and the narrator says they are "still waiting" to this very day.
Dealing with similar subject matter, Dahl's novel James and the Giant Peach (1961) is about a young boy named James. James becomes orphaned at a young age when his parents are eaten by a rhinoceros that escaped the local zoo. He is taken in by his aunts who physically and verbally abuse him. One day, he is given a bag of crystals. He spills these crystals onto the ground and this causes a small peach tree in his backyard to grow rapidly. A giant peach grows from the tree and James' aunts charge people money to come see it. After the tourists leave, James is able to crawl inside the peach and meets several insects who he befriends. James moves into the peach and has many exciting adventures with his new friends. The peach comes loose and rolls away towards the ocean, crushing James' aunts in the process. Then, after using spiderwebs to attach the peach to some seagulls, the group flies high into the clouds and meets mystical men who make storms occur. Finally, at the novel's end, the peach arrives in New York City. It lands on the Empire State Building but James is able to explain to everyone that the peach is not dangerous. Eventually, James and his friends make lives for themselves in the city and sleep in the pit of the peach, which is located in Central Park.
These novels, while telling seemingly different stories, show a community existing in harmony with nature, contrasting this sharply with the greed and strife of human society. Mr Fox and his family are able to forge a strong bond with the other animals in the burrow, sustaining themselves with group effort. Likewise, James is saved from his miserable childhood with the generosity he is shown by the insects. The Magic Finger ends in a similar manner to these books, depicting a harmonious relationship with nature and underscoring it as a kind of ideal. For Dahl, nature must be protected at all costs, as it is home to extraordinary things and creatures more caring than humans.
