The Minpins represents a slight departure for Roald Dahl. It is, firstly, a much more straightforwardly fairy tale type of story than his usual work. Secondly, although it is not especially darker than most of his stories—a difficult achievement to attain since Dahl by definition is pretty dark as a starting point—it quite clearly is less concerned with creating a comic tone. By far, however, the single most startling difference between this and other books by Dahl is the portrait of the adult antagonist.
Some might not even be aware that there is an adult antagonist in this story. The villain of the tale is, after all, the terrifying fire-breathing Gruncher. And, indeed, the Gruncher must be considered within literary terms the figure that stands in opposition to Billy’s protagonist. The conflict that is the foundation of the story, however, is that existing between Billy and his mother. In this sense, it is Billy’s mother who is the real antagonist of the story. This should be made clear by the story’s powerfully effective opening sentence:
“Little Billy’s mother was always telling him exactly eh was allowed to do and what he was not allowed to do.”
This is the impetus that drives the action of the narrative. Billy has reached a crisis point in his life in which he must either rebel or face the potential reality of always submitting to authority. The Forest of Sin lures like the greatest temptation in the world and it has been doing so despite the horror stories created by his mother to keep him from exploring the world of rebellion against her dominance. If that opening line doesn’t situate Billy’s mother as the story’s antagonist, then it perhaps her response voiced later in the tale will.
Billy does something he has been trained and conditioned by the imposition of authority by his mother to do exactly what is expected of him even after going on his great adventure. Billy tells the truth to his mother, even though the description is highly suggestive that one of the lessons he’s learned from his act of insurrection is the complex mechanics of truth-telling:
“I won’t,” Little Billy said, smiling a little. “I’ll just fly up into the branches on silver wings.”
“What rubbish you talk,” his mother said.
Billy, still the good son, has told his mother a truth that didn’t need to be expressed and could have been kept from her without her ever suspecting a lie of omission. Instead, perhaps as Billy expects considering his little smile, his mother just dismisses the truth—quite insultingly—and leaves. Billy has destroyed the Gruncher and rather easily, so that part of his adventure is over and done with. But his mother remains just as much under the impression that he will unquestionably submit to her will to the same degree now as she did when the story opens. The trek into the forest has changed Billy forever, but as yet the consequences of this transformation has not yet been identified by his mother. That is a battle that will continue, but now victory looks more assured for Billy than it used to.
Dahl is famous—or infamous—for creating grotesque adult characters with a physical manifestation of their inner malevolence that makes it easy to identify them as villainous. Except for her dismissal of Billy’s story about flying on silver wings with the inappropriate term “rubbish” his mother certainly does not seem to belong to the same catalogue of adult human population Dahl’s books as the farmers pursuing Mr. Fox, the Twits or George’s grandmother who consumes his marvelous medicine. Billy’s mom really doesn’t even seem like a bad person, to be honest. And yet, within the context of what is going on in this story—the victory of the power of imagination over oppressive authoritarian rule—Billy’s mother belongs right there alongside Big Brother and Dr. Zaius.
