Matilda and the Mythologisation of Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull

The power of children’s literature is such that a significant number of teachers in the UK take the texts they read as children into the classroom to share with future generations. One of the most popular authors is Roald Dahl; and his most popular title among practitioners is Matilda. As a result, the characters of Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull have become highly influential in the cultural construction of the literary primary teacher, and even influenced real teachers’ decision to train as educators. In light of the potential interplay between imagined teachers and the identity construction of teachers in training it is important to analyse what constructs the teacher are being offered in this most significant of works. In this article I investigate the way that teaching and teachers are presented by Dahl in order to examine the sociocultural constructs he offers children regarding the role and the people who choose to undertake it