The Sea Turtle
“The Boy Who Talked to Animals” is about a record-breaking giant sea turtle captured by fishermen. A young boy is walking along the beach with his wealthy father when he spots the turtle and pleads with dad to help save it. Eventually, the dad pays for the privilege of having the turtle returned to the sea on the condition that once he and his child leave, it becomes up for grabs all over again. Instead, the wake up the next day to find boy is missing. Later he is spotted riding the turtle out to sea. The sea turtle symbolizes the eventual long-term victory of protest against corporate interests.
The Swan
Another story deals with an animal rescuing a young boy, to a certain degree and in a unique way. Two older boys terrorize a younger boy physically, mentally and psychologically. They also kill a swan, cut off its wings and tied them to the bullied kid. Ironically, the swan’s wings are what save the boy from even more danger so that in the end the swan—through its wings—becomes a symbol of determination, endurance and the will not to be conquered.
Fingersmith
To be a fingersmith is to be a higher order of pickpocket. A pickpocket is “coarse and vulgar” whereas a fingersmith is a skilled trade. The title character in “The Hitch-Hiker” is a fingersmith and the narrator is a writer. Early on the writer admits that one of the reasons he picks up hitchers is he enjoys being on the other the end equation: he hated how those who picked him up when he was young peppered him with intrusive questions, but, as he tells the hitcher, “most writers are terribly nosey parkers.” The two trades become conjoined by the end as the practice of picking pockets transforms the craft of being a fingersmith symbolically into being a writer since both pick the pockets of strangers in different ways.
Secret Treasure
“The Mildenhall Treasure” is an account of the infamous true story of the discovery of ancient Roman treasures on British soil in 1946. The story itself is exceptionally complex involving betrayal and the idiosyncrasies of British law and missed opportunities to cash in big, but the story also has a symbolic aspect involving Dahl. As he explains it, “True stories about the finding of really big treasure send shivers of electricity” down his legs. Just a few paragraphs earlier, Dahl explained that he was making money writing two stories a year—averaging four months to write each story. This one, by contrast, is done at lightning speed, turning the story of secret treasure into a symbolic discovered treasure for the writer.
Mrs. O’Connor
For many if not most students, at least part of their academic experience can be hell to recall. For Dahl, much of his time spent in school was a genuine living hell. Between the schoolmasters with their canes and the upperclassmen with their sadistic torture of younger kids, finding a ray of sunshine was pretty much what the whole year was about. In his essay on advice for writing titled “Lucky Break” that symbolic ray of sunshine during the section recollecting his school years is named Mrs. O’Connor. Not just a symbol of a heavenly escape from misery, Mrs. O’Connor—who wasn’t a teacher, but rather a woman hired supposedly to “babysit”--is also the symbolic incarnation of that person one remembers from their schooldays who transcended everything and became, ironically, the one person who really taught them stuff worth knowing and remembering.
