Matilda Full Book Summary

Full Book Summary

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Matilda Wormwood is a gifted girl with unpleasant parents. From a young age she can speak like
an adult. Since her parents don’t pay much attention to her, Matilda teaches herself to read.
Before she has even been to elementary school, she has already read many books in the local
library. She spends her afternoons at the library where a friendly librarian helps Matilda choose
classic novels. Matilda’s parents think she should read less and watch more television.

Matilda’s father, Mr. Wormwood, is a dishonest car salesman. He uses several illegal tactics to
trick people into buying cars that are complete junk. He regularly tries to prepare Matilda’s
brother, Michael, to follow him into the car salesman business. Matilda tells her father that he is
dishonest, but it only makes him mad.

Matilda decides to punish her parents for the way they treat her. She hopes that it will make them
less selfish and mean. She tricks her father into gluing his hat to his head, borrows a neighbor’s
parrot to convince the family that there is a ghost in the dining room, and swaps her father’s hair
tonic for dye that bleaches his hair. None of these pranks have a lasting effect on her parents, but
they help train Matilda to deal with bullies.

When Matilda is old enough to go to school, she finally meets an adult who cares about her
future. Her teacher, Miss Honey, is thoughtful and understanding. She quickly notices that
Matilda is very smart. Miss Honey tries to get Matilda moved to a higher grade, since she can
read and write better than children several years older. Miss Honey is unsuccessful because the
Headmistress of the school, Miss Trunchbull, refuses and believes Miss Honey is just trying to
get rid of Matilda.

Miss Trunchbull is mean and abusive to students. She grabs a student by her hair and throws the
girl over a fence, just because Miss Trunchbull does not like the girl’s pigtails. She also forces a
student to eat an entire cake in front of all the students, hoping that it will make him sick.
Matilda wants to punish Miss Trunchbull for being a bully. Matilda and another girl in her class,
Lavender, become friends. Lavender is also rebellious and wants to punish Miss Trunchbull.

When Miss Trunchbull comes to teach Matilda’s class, she is mean to the students and even Miss
Honey, who tries to defend the students. Lavender puts a newt into Miss Trunchbull’s water jug,
causing her to scream and jump back. While Miss Trunchbull is yelling at the students, Matilda
stares at the glass that holds the newt and uses her mind to knock it over onto Miss Trunchbull.
Matilda speaks with Miss Honey about what she has done. Miss Honey has Matilda push the

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glass over using her mind again and is amazed at Matilda’s power. They go to Miss Honey’s
small home to have tea and discuss Matilda’s powers.

Matilda notices that Miss Honey is very poor and asks her why she cannot afford a nicer home or
proper furniture. Miss Honey tells her that she was raised by a very mean aunt who took her
father’s home and keeps almost all of Miss Honey’s money when she gets paid by the school.
This makes Matilda upset, since Miss Honey has been so nice to her, and Matilda does not like
bullies. Miss Honey then reveals that her aunt is Miss Trunchbull.

Matilda spends the next week practicing her mind powers and comes up with a plan. While Miss
Trunchbull is teaching her class, Matilda lifts a piece of chalk and writes a message on the
blackboard, making it seem as if the message is from the ghost of Miss Honey’s father. Miss
Trunchbull faints. After she recovers, she leaves town. Miss Honey receives a letter with her
father’s will that Miss Trunchbull had kept from Miss Honey. She gets ownership of her father’s
house and savings account. Matilda visits Miss Honey at her new house and they grow their
friendship. Matilda also gets moved into a much higher grade at school and loses her mental
powers, since she now has schoolwork that challenges her mind.

Matilda returns home one day to find her family frantically packing the car. Her father tells
Matilda that they are moving to Spain and not coming back. Matilda runs to Miss Honey, who
tells Matilda that her father is in business with criminals, and it was only a matter of time before
he would flee the country. Matilda brings Miss Honey back to her house and asks her father if
she can stay behind and live with Miss Honey. Matilda’s father agrees and the family leaves her
behind.

Here's a summary and chracter sketches of Matilda by Roald Dahl for grade 6:

Summary

Matilda is a genius and kind 5-year-old girl who is born into a family of uncaring and neglectful
parents. She discovers she has telekinetic powers and uses them to defend herself against her
family's cruelty. When she starts attending Crunchem Hall Primary School, she meets her cruel
headmaster, Mr. Wormwood's friend, Miss Trunchbull, and her kind teacher, Miss Honey.
Matilda uses her intelligence and powers to outsmart Miss Trunchbull and ultimately find a
loving home with Miss Honey.

Character Sketches

Matilda Wormwood

- Age: 5 (but extremely intelligent and mature for her age)

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- Personality: Kind, clever, resourceful, and determined

- Special powers: Telekinetic

Miss Honey

- Age: Adult

- Personality: Kind, gentle, caring, and supportive

- Relationship with Matilda: Becomes Matilda's ally and guardian

Miss Trunchbull

- Age: Adult

- Personality: Cruel, intimidating, and abusive

- Role: Headmaster of Crunchem Hall Primary School

Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood

- Age: Adults

- Personality: Uncaring, neglectful, and selfish

- Relationship with Matilda: Unloving and neglectful parents

Here are some questions about chapters 18-21 of Matilda:

Chapter 18-19

1. What plan does Matilda devise to deal with Miss Trunchbull?

2. How does Matilda's relationship with Miss Honey change in these chapters?

3. What does Matilda learn about Miss Trunchbull's past?

Chapter 20-21

1. How does Matilda's plan to overthrow Miss Trunchbull come to fruition?

2. What happens to Miss Trunchbull in the end?

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3. How does Matilda's life change after Miss Trunchbull's departure?

Analytical Questions

1. How does Matilda's understanding of her powers and herself evolve in these chapters?

2. What role does Miss Honey play in Matilda's ultimate triumph over Miss Trunchbull?

3. How does the story portray the theme of justice and consequence in these chapters?

Comprehension Questions

1. What kind of family did Matilda grow up in? (Chapter 1)

2. How did Matilda's parents treat her? (Chapter 1-2)

3. What special power did Matilda discover she had? (Chapter 3-4)

4. Describe Miss Trunchbull's appearance and behavior. (Chapter 5-6)

5. How did Matilda feel about her teacher, Miss Honey? (Chapter 7-8)

Analytical Questions

1. How did Matilda's home life affect her behavior and attitude towards school? (Chapter 1-5)

2. What role did Miss Honey play in Matilda's life, and how did their relationship develop?
(Chapter 7-10)

3. How did Matilda use her intelligence and resourcefulness to outsmart Miss Trunchbull?
(Chapter 11-15)

4. What message do you think Roald Dahl is conveying through Matilda's story about the
importance of kindness and empathy?

Critical Thinking Questions

1. Do you think Matilda's parents were justified in their treatment of her? Why or why not?
(Chapter 1-2)

2. How does Miss Trunchbull's behavior towards students reflect on her character? What does
this say about her values? (Chapter 5-6)

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3. What would you have done differently if you were in Matilda's shoes? How would you have
handled Miss Trunchbull?

Contextual Questions

1. How does Matilda's story relate to real-life situations where children might face similar
challenges or abuse?

2. What social commentary do you think Roald Dahl is making through his portrayal of the
Wormwood family and Miss Trunchbull?

What is Matilda's brother's name?

Michael
Magnus
Danny
James
2.
What was the first "grown-up" book that Matilda read?

Just So Stories
The Red Pony
War and Peace
Great Expectations
3.
Where does Matilda's mysterious power "shoot" from?

Her elbow
The top of her head
Her finger
Her eyes
4.
What does Matilda's mother do all day long?

Exercise
Dye her hair

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 Play bingo
Shop
5.
What was Fred's parrot's name?

Bruce
Nigel
Polly
Chopper
6.
What does Mr. Wormwood use to make his cars' engines run smoothly?

Honey
Extra oil
Sawdust
An electric drill
7.
Every day Mr. Wormwood put something on his hair. What was it?

Styling cream
Hair tonic
Wax
Peroxide
8.
What was Miss Honey's first name?

Jennifer
Hortensia
Lavender
Agatha
9.
What name is on the gate of Matilda's house?

Cosy Nook

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 Comfy Cottage
Happy Valley
Gipsy House
10.
What is Matilda's complaint about the books of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien?

No romance
No funny bits
Too difficult
Too long
11.
The Trunchbull puts children in a cupboard to punish them. What is it called?

The Stifler
The Coffin
The Black Hole
The Chokey
12.
Who put itching powder in the Trunchbull's knickers?

Matilda
Miss Honey
Lavender
Hortensia
13.
In what event did the Trunchbull compete at the Olympics?

100 yard dash

Hammer throw
Weightlifting
Javelin
14.
What did Bruce Bogtrotter steal from the Trunchbull?

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 Medal
Chocolate cake
Egg salad sandwich
Riding crop
15.
What does Lavender put in the Trunchbull's water jug?

A mouse
A goldfish
A frog
A newt
16.
According to the Trunchbull, the perfect school would have...?

Corporal punishment
Strict discipline
No children
Uniforms
17.
What relation is the Trunchbull to Miss Honey?

Her mother
Her cousin
Her grandmother
Her aunt
18.
What was Miss Honey's father's name?

Victor
Harry
Nigel
Magnus
19.
What is Matilda's third and final miracle?

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 Flying
Lifting a child
Writing on the chalkboard
Tipping a glass of water
20.
Where does the Wormwood family (minus Matilda) move at the end of the story?

USA
Australia
Spain
Russia

Matilda Summary and Analysis of Chapters

1-3
Summary
Roald Dahl begins the first chapter by talking about parents. Most parents
will brag about their children no matter what they do, even if the child
himself is not necessarily worthy of praise. However, there are also parents
who do the opposite—they show little interest in their children. This is the
case with Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood, who look upon their daughter Matilda
as "nothing more than a scab," even though they dote on their elder son,
Michael.
This is especially bad because Matilda is a genius, and most parents would
have been in awe of her mind. She could speak perfectly, even better than
most grown ups, by the age of one and a half. When she was three she had
taught herself to read, but her parents would never buy her a book because
they believed that television is much more important. Around this age,
Matilda was left alone at home all day while her brother was at school, her
father at work, and her mother at bingo. One day she set off to the public
library, and the librarian, Mrs. Phelps, pointed her to the children's section
to find a book to read.
After this she went to the library every afternoon to read, and soon made her
way through every book in the children's section. Astounded, Mrs. Phelps
recommended some grown up books for her, starting with Great
Expectations by Charles Dickens. Matilda reads through books at the
library for six months, until Mrs. Phelps finally tells her she can borrow books
and take them home. Once she learns this, she visits only once a week to
take out books to take home with her. She loved books because she could
escape into them.

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The next chapter details Matilda's father's work. Mr. Wormwood is a car
dealer, but his success is based on cheating his customers in various ways,
like selling them older, less functional cars but sprucing them up in certain
ways that make them appear better than they actually are so he can fetch
more money from the sale. He even found a way to turn the speedometer
backwards so that the car appears to have driven fewer miles than it actually
has. He tells these secrets to his children because he wants Michael to join
the business one day, but Matilda just believes he is a crook.
The family eats every dinner in front of the television, and Matilda is not
allowed to read her books during the meal. This, along with everything else,
pushes Matilda to her limit, and she decides one day that she will somehow
get back at her parents for not caring about her.

For her first trick, she takes the hat her father wears to work each day and
lines it with superglue. He puts it on, and does not notice it is stuck to his
head until he gets home in the evening and attempts to take it off. Mr.
Wormwood is suspicious that Matilda has done something, but Matilda plays
innocent, and Mrs. Wormwood says she thinks Mr. Wormwood did it
accidentally when he was trying to glue the feather back onto his hat.

When the hat still does not loosen up by the next morning, Mrs. Wormwood
attempts to cut it off his head. Some of his hair comes off with it, and some
bits of brown hat still stick to his forehead. Matilda is extremely satisfied with
her success.

Matilda Summary and Analysis of Chapters

4-6
Summary
All is calm in the Wormwood household for a week following the hat incident,
and Matilda wonders if her trick had been enough to finally stop her father
from bullying her. Then one evening he returns from work, clearly in a sour
mood, and snaps at Matilda for choosing to read a book instead of watching
television. He tears pages from her book and throws them in the trash can,
which leaves her shocked and angry, since it is a library book and does not
belong to her. While Matilda is extremely upset, she realizes the only way to
deal with this is to get back at him.

With a plan in mind, Matilda goes over to her friend Fred's house the next
day to investigate his talking parrot, wondering if it talks as well as he says it
does. The parrot's voice does indeed sound just like a human's, but he can
only say "Hullo" and "Rattle my bones!" Matilda decides this is enough for
her purposes, and gives Fred all her pocket money so that he will loan the
parrot to her for just one night.

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Once home, she wedges the parrot's cage up the chimney so it cannot be seen. That evening, as
the family is eating dinner in front of the television, the parrot begins to speak. It says "Hullo,
hullo, hullo" over and over again, and Matilda's mother panics because she thinks burglars are in
the house. She insists that Matilda's father go check, but he is afraid, so he drags the rest of the
family with him. Unsurprisingly, they find no one, but the parrot begins to say "Rattle my
bones." Matilda guesses aloud that it is a ghost, and proclaims that the room is haunted. The
family runs out of the house in fright, and the next day Matilda is able to take the grumpy, sooty
parrot down from the chimney and return him to Fred.

Matilda takes satisfaction in the fact that her punishments seem to work, for a little while, at
making her parents more bearable to be around. But it does not last. After a day of work, Mr.
Wormwood asks Matilda's brother to fetch a pad and paper to add up some figures, since he will
be joining his father's car sales business when he is older and will need to know these things. He
lists how many cars he sold that day, stating both the price he bought them for and the price he
sold them for, and asks his son to figure out his final total profit. In hardly a blink of an eye,
Matilda answers, getting the number exactly right. This rattles her father, who calls her a liar and
a cheat.

Matilda knows her father needs another punishment. She takes her mother's platinum blonde hair
dye from the cupboard in the bathroom and pours some of it into her father's bottle of hair tonic,
which he uses to keep his thick black hair looking bright and strong. She listens in the morning
while he applies it, and he is clearly unaware that anything is amiss. Then he comes into the
kitchen to eat his breakfast, and Matilda's mother screams when she catches sight of her husband,
with hair that is now a dirty silver color. She insists he must have dyed it, and Matilda suggests
that he unwittingly took Mrs. Wormwood's bottle of hair dye off the shelf instead of his own
tonic.

They all tell him to wash his hair fast or it might start falling out, since peroxide is a powerful
chemical. Matilda plays innocent, and her mother tells her that she will learn as she gets older
that men are not quite as clever as they think they are.

Matilda Summary and Analysis of Chapters

7-9
Summary
Matilda enters school for the first time at age five-and-a-half, significantly
later than most children begin primary school because her parents had not
bothered to make arrangements until now. Her school is a bleak brick
building called Crunchem Hall Primary School, famous for its unforgiving
headmistress, a large middle-aged woman named Miss Trunchbull.

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Matilda is assigned to the lowest class since she has never been to school
before, and her teacher is a young woman named Miss Jennifer Honey.
Miss Honey is pretty, slim, and extremely quiet, and she is universally
loved by every child she teaches. Miss Trunchbull, however, is the exact
opposite: huge and formidable, fierce, and a monster to the pupils in her
school, plowing through them in the hallways and shouting at them like an
army sergeant. On the first day, Miss Honey warns her class about Miss
Trunchbull, telling them to behave themselves in her presence because she
is very serious about discipline.
Miss Honey begins the first lesson by asking if anyone knows the two-times
table already. Matilda is the only one, and she recites it perfectly, going far
beyond what Miss Honey expected her to. She multiplies large sums in her
head, like two times four hundred and eighty-seven. Matilda reveals that she
also knows all the other times tables by heart. Miss Honey is stunned, and
asks Matilda if it was her parents who taught her to multiply so adeptly.
Matilda says no, and cannot explain how she knows how to do it—her mind
just does the math instantly.

Miss Honey is baffled, believing she has found a child mathematical prodigy.
She probes Matilda's mind more, asking her to read long, complex
sentences, and Matilda informs Miss Honey that there are few things she
cannot read, even if she does not always understand the meanings. Miss
Honey has her read aloud from a book of limericks. Matilda reads it perfectly,
and reveals that she has been making up a limerick in her head about Miss
Honey while they have been speaking. It compliments Miss Honey on her
beautiful face, and she blushes when the whole class agrees that it is true.
Matilda tells Miss Honey about the books she has read in the public library,
saying that Dickens is her favorite.

When class breaks for interval, Miss Honey goes straight to Miss Trunchbull's
study to tell her that Matilda must be moved up to a higher class. Dahl takes
a long moment to describe Miss Trunchbull's appearance; she was once a
famous athlete, so her bulky muscles are evident and imposing. She wears
strange clothes not suited for a school headmistress. When Miss Honey
mentions Matilda Wormwood, Miss Trunchbull remarks that she knows
and likes her father, since he sold her a car just the day before. She says
that Mr. Wormwood warned him to keep an eye on Matilda, since she is
trouble.
Miss Trunchbull becomes convinced that Matilda put a stink bomb in her
study desk that morning, and will not listen to Miss Honey insisting
otherwise. Miss Honey tells her that Matilda is a genius, and should be
moved up to the top form with the eleven-year-olds. Miss Trunchbull thinks
Miss Honey only wants her moved so she can get her off her hair, and
refuses to move her, saying children must stay with their own age group

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regardless of ability. Miss Honey resolves that she will do something about
the child on her own.

Miss Honey borrows textbooks from the senior class and tells Matilda that
she will give her a new one during each lesson to study while she teaches
the other students. She decides to go and have a secret talk with Matilda's
mother and father, not believing that they are completely unaware of their
daughter's brilliance. She wonders if they would give her permission to tutor
Matilda privately after school.

She goes to their house late at night when Matilda is already in bed, and at
first Mr. Wormwood is reluctant to let her in because she is interrupting their
favorite television program. Miss Honey yells about how television should not
be more important than their daughter's future, and Mr. Wormwood, not
used to being spoken in this way, finally lets her in. Miss Honey tells them
how remarkable Matilda is, but quickly learns that Matilda does not come
from a family that values literature and learning, as she originally
expected. Mrs. Wormwood scoffs and says girls like Matilda should care
more about looks than books, since those are what will get her a good
husband one day.
Affronted, Miss Honey suggests private tutoring for Matilda, believing she
can be brought up to university standard within two or three years. Mr.
Wormwood insists that university is useless, but Miss Honey hotly reminds
him that if he needed a doctor for an emergency or a lawyer if he were to be
sued, both of those people would be university graduates. She tells him not
to despise clever people, but accepts that they are not going to agree.

Matilda Summary and Analysis of Chapters

10-12
Summary
Matilda has an easy time making friends with the other children in her class,
since she is very humble and polite and shows no outward signs of her
brilliance. She becomes especially close friends with a girl
named Lavender, and each likes the other because she is gutsy and
adventurous. Many of the older kids warn them about Miss Trunchbull,
and a ten-year-old named Hortensia informs them that "the Trunchbull"
hates the youngest class the most.

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She also tells them about The Chokey, a tiny cupboard in Miss Trunchbull's
quarters where children are punished by being forced to stand up straight for
hours, since the door and walls are made of glass and nails. Hortensia has
been locked in it six times for various pranks she has pulled on Miss
Trunchbull. Lavender and Matilda are in awe of Hortensia's mastery of
messing with the Trunchbull.

Hortensia recounts a number of terrible things Miss Trunchbull has done to

the children, including throwing one child out the window for eating in class.
She tells them that the headmistress once threw hammer in the Olympics for
Britain, so her arm strength is unparalleled. As she is explaining this, the
playground falls silent and Miss Trunchbull stomps outside, parting the sea of
children and shouting for one called Amanda Thripp. Amanda's mother
has braided her long hair into pigtails, and Miss Trunchbull hates pigtails
more than anything else.
Miss Trunchbull tells Amanda to chop off the pigtails and get rid of them
before she comes to school tomorrow, but Amanda protests, saying her
mother does them every morning and thinks they look pretty. Angry, Miss
Trunchbull grabs the little girl by her pigtails and swings her around and
around, then throws her the way she would throw a hammer in the Olympics.
Amanda flies over the fence and outside the playground but, miraculously,
she hops up once she lands and totters back.

When Matilda asks why children's parents do not complain about Miss
Trunchbull, Hortensia tells her that the parents are just as afraid of her as
the students. Lavender says her parents would raise a stink if she told them
about her, but Matilda doubts that any parent would believe a story that
sounds so ridiculous. Matilda says that's Miss Trunchbull's mindset: do things
that are so outrageous that they cannot be believed, allowing her to get
away with it.

Miss Trunchbull's antics continue the next day, when all two hundred fifty
students are called to an assembly during lunch. Miss Trunchbull calls up a
boy named Bruce Bogtrotter, accusing him of stealing a slice of her
special chocolate cake from her tea tray. Bruce denies it, but she refuses to
believe him. As punishment Miss Trunchbull calls out the school cook, who
brings an entire enormous cake and tells him to eat a slice, right there. The
students worry that she has poisoned the cake in some way, but she has not;
instead, she intends to make him eat the entire cake on his own in front of
everyone, and no one can leave until it is finished. It is a grueling process,
but he does it, polishing off the entire plate in a triumphant victory. Miss
Trunchbull is furious that he was able to.
Not long later, Miss Honey announces to Matilda's class that Miss
Trunchbull has a policy of taking over each class for one period each week.
On Thursday afternoons, it is their class's turn. She gives them instructions

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to be very careful about their appearance and behavior, since the
headmistress is quite strict. She assigns Lavender to the task of preparing a
jug of water to await the headmistress on her desk when she comes in.
Lavender has a brilliant idea, and catches a newt from her garden to slip
inside Miss Trunchbull's water jug the next day.

Matilda Summary and Analysis of Chapters 13-15

Summary

At two o'clock, when Miss Trunchbull is due to arrive, everyone is ready, and Miss Honey is
pleased to see that the jug of water and glass are on the desk where they are meant to be. Miss
Trunchbull walks in, formidable and threatening as always, and proceeds to insult the children
immediately. She makes them turn over their hands so she can see if they are washed and clean,
and picks on one boy, Nigel Hicks, whose hands are filthy.

as punishment, she makes him go stand in the corner on one leg with his face to the wall. While
he is there, she tests his spelling skills. Nigel spells "write" correctly on the first try, and tells her
that the entire class learned to spell a long word yesterday, "difficulty." Miss Trunchbull does not
believe that is true, so she tests a random girl, Prudence, to see if she can spell it. She does, and
Nigel shows Miss Trunchbull the method that Miss Honey has taught them to remember the
spellings of long words. While still standing on one foot, he sings a simple song, "Mrs. D, Mrs. I,
Mrs. FFI, Mrs. C, Mrs. U, Mrs. LTY," to spell the word "difficulty."

miss Trunchbull thinks it is ridiculous, and tells Miss Honey not to teach poetry while she is
teaching spelling. She moves on to test their knowledge of multiplication tables, and a boy
named Rupert answers two times seven incorrectly. Miss Trunchbull gets furiously angry, and
lifts little Rupert into the air by his hair. She will not let him go until he says that two sevens are
fourteen. The children are astounded, and would think she were splendid entertainment if she
were not so frightening.
After Miss Trunchbull says she hates small people, she gets angry at a boy named Eric Ink for
saying that she, too, must have been small one day. She makes him spell the word "what," and
when he spells it wrong she lifts him by his ears out of his seat. She lowers him back when he
spells it correctly, and tells Miss Honey that this is the only way to make sure children learn.
She implores Miss Honey to read Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens to learn how
headmaster Mr. Wackford Squeers handled the children in his school using physical discipline.
Matilda quietly remarks that she has read this book, which Miss Trunchbull does not believe.
She asks Matilda's name and when she reveals it, Miss Trunchbull screams that her father is a
crook who sold her a faulty car pretending it was new. Matilda diplomatically defends him,
saying he is clever at his business, and Miss Trunchbull says she does not like clever people
because they are all crooked.
Miss Trunchbull sits down at the teacher's desk and begins to pour herself a glass of water. When
the newt that Lavender put in falls out she shrieks and jumps around, then immediately blames
Matilda even though the girl insists that she did not do it. Miss Trunchbull continues to shout at

15
her and Matilda gets so angry, and she stares at the glass with the newt in it, feeling some kind of
power brewing inside her. She wills the glass to tip over in her mind, and it wobbles, until it
finally topples over and the newt spills right onto Miss Trunchbull. Once again she accuses
Matilda, but Miss Honey insists that she must have knocked it over on her own since no one
went near the desk. She insists that none of the children moved. Furious, Miss Trunchbull stomps
out the door.
Matilda hangs back when all the students are dismissed, desperate for Miss Honey to help her
understand what she was just able to do. Matilda reveals that it was her who knocked over the
glass, even though she did not go near it. She did it with her eyes, by willing it to tip over. Miss
Honey at first believes it is in Matilda's imagination, but gives her the benefit of the doubt and
asks her to try to do it again. Eventually the glass does fall over, and Miss Honey is astounded.
She invites Matilda back to her cottage to have tea and talk about it

Matilda Summary and Analysis of Chapters 16-18

Summary

As Matilda and Miss Honey walk through the village towards Miss Honey's cottage, Matilda
becomes more and more animated, happily hopping along and chattering to Miss Honey about
how powerful and happy she feels. Miss Honey warns her that they must tread carefully, since
they do not know the implications of the mysterious forces they are dealing with. She says they
should explore Matilda's newfound powers on their own, for a while, before they decide what
they mean.

They travel down an isolated country road and finally arrive at Miss Honey's home. It's a tiny red
brick cottage, meant for a farm laborer, the walls crumbling and old. Miss Honey recites a poem
that she often thinks of as she walks up the path to her house, by a poet called Dylan Thomas.
Matilda is fascinated at hearing romantic poetry spoken aloud, and calls it music. She feels as if
she is approaching something fantastical, like this cottage is straight out of a fairy tale.

Miss Honey's cottage is small and plain, hardly furnished. The kitchen only has a few shelves, a
sink, and a stove. The sink does not work, so Matilda is sent to go fetch water outside from the
well. When Matilda asks, Miss Honey tells her that she is very poor. They make tea and bread,
and Matilda is careful not to say anything that would embarrass Miss Honey.

They take their sitting room, which is so bare that it surprises Matilda: the only pieces of
furniture are three overturned boxes, two serving as chairs and as a table. Matilda cannot believe
that this is where her schoolteacher lives, and thinks there must be some reason for it, something

16
going on here that she does not know. Matilda resolves herself to figuring out the mystery of this
little house.

Matilda carefully probes Miss Honey, asking if they pay her very little at school. Miss Honey
says she makes the same as everyone else, but she is the only one who lives so poor and simply.
Matilda guesses that she must like living this way, which makes Miss Honey uncomfortable.
When Matilda apologizes, Miss Honey dismisses it, and says though she has never talked about
her problems to anyone before, she now feels the desperate need to tell someone else her story.

She begins, talking about how she was born to a doctor father in a big house nearby in the
village. Her mother died when she was two, so her father invited her mother's sister—her aunt—
to come in and live with them to take care of her. Miss Honey hated her right from the start; she
was very unkind, though she always hid her cruelty in front of Miss Honey's father. Then when
Miss Honey was five, her father died very suddenly, having allegedly killed himself, and she was
left to live alone with her cruel aunt. Matilda wonders aloud if the aunt was actually the one who
killed him.

Living with her aunt, Miss Honey's life was a nightmare. She does not want to talk about the
specifics, but her abuse made her timid and afraid. Anything her aunt demanded, she obeyed, and
grew up doing all of her housework and cleaning. Though she was a bright student, she was
forbidden from going to university. She was allowed to go to a teacher's college forty minutes a
day, as long as she came right home afterwards each day and did her housework. When Miss
Honey got her teacher's job, her aunt told her she would have to give her every bit of her salary
for the next ten years to pay her back for feeding and housing her all these years.

Miss Honey is proud of how she managed to escape her aunt's house and live in this tiny cottage.
She stumbled upon the place two years ago, and was able to rent it off a farmer for ten pence per
week. She has managed to live here since on the one pound per week she gets as allowance from
her aunt. Matilda thinks Miss Honey is a heroine, but realizes she cannot live like this for an
indefinite amount of time and needs help. Matilda insists that she hire a lawyer and fight for her
father's house, since surely he left it to his daughter, but Miss Honey says that no one has ever
been able to find her father's will. Besides, she says, her aunt is a much-respected figure in the
community and has a lot of influence. Finally, she reveals exactly who her aunt is: Miss
Trunchbull.

Matilda is shocked, and realizes it's no wonder Miss Honey is so terrified. Miss Honey diverts
the conversation to Matilda, but Matilda says she is not in the mood to do experiments with her
mind power today; she would rather go home and think about what she has heard this afternoon.

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Miss Honey agrees and walks her home, and as she does, Matilda gets an idea. She does not
reveal it to Miss Honey, but she asks a few questions. She learns that Miss Honey's father's name
was Magnus, he called Miss Trunchbull Agatha, and they both called Miss Honey Jenny.

Chapter 19-21

Matilda returns home to an empty house, just as she hoped. She takes one of her father's cigars to
her room to practice, setting it down on her dressing table and sitting ten feet away from it. She
wills it to move and it does almost at once, rolling off the table. Feeling powerful, she decides to
see if she can lift it up in the air. She concentrates hard, and eventually it lifts into the air for
about ten seconds before falling down again.

Invigorated, she practices and practices and manages to get it to stay up for a full minute. Every
day after school Matilda practices lifting the cigar. By Wednesday evening, she is able not only
to lift it, but also to get it to move around in the air however she wants. She knows then that the
time has come to put her plan to help Miss Honey into action.
The next day is Thursday, which is when Miss Trunchbull comes in to teach Miss Honey's class.
Miss Honey warns them all to be especially careful today, after what happened last week when
she took over. When Miss Trunchbull comes in, she first checks to see that there are no creatures
in her water jug. She points to a boy named Wilfred and asks him to recite the three-times table
backwards, and when he cannot, Miss Honey tells her that she sees no point in teaching them
things backwards when the whole point of life is to go forwards.
Miss Trunchbull continues to torment Wilfred with difficult questions, and when he cannot
answer she flips him and dangles him upside down. As she does, Nigel shrieks that the chalk on
the blackboard is moving on its own. Everyone stares as the chalk begins to write something,
starting with Miss Trunchbull's first name, Agatha. It continues to write, presumably a message
also containing the names "Magnus" and "Jenny."
Miss Trunchbull begins to shriek, traumatized, and then faints dead away on the floor. Miss
Honey sends someone to go fetch the nurse, and Nigel dumps the jug of water on Miss
Trunchbull's face and she still does not wake up. Matilda, with her palms crossed and motionless
at her desk, feels elated and powerful. The nurses and teachers come, and all are excited to see
that someone has floored Miss Trunchbull at last. They carry her out of the classroom, and as
class is dismissed that day Miss Honey comes and gives Matilda a big hug and kiss.

News spreads later that day that Miss Trunchbull woke up, marched out of school, and did not
come back the next day. Mr. Trilby, the Deputy Head, goes to investigate, and no one answers
the door at her house. When he goes inside the unlocked door, he sees that all her clothes and
belongings are gone. She has vanished.
The following day Miss Honey receives notice that her father's will has been mysteriously found,
and that it grants Miss Honey ownership of the old red house in which Miss Trunchbull had been
living. She also gets his life savings. Within a few weeks she moves in, and Matilda comes to
visit every evening after school. Mr. Trilby becomes the school's Head Teacher, and moves
Matilda up to the top form with Miss Plimsoll immediately.

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A few weeks later while having tea with Miss Honey in her house, Matilda tells her that she
suddenly realized she is unable to move objects with her mind at all any more. Miss Honey says
she had been expecting something like that to happen, and says she believes the reason it started
in the first place was that in Miss Honey's class in the lowest form, she had nothing to challenge
her mind. Her brain bubbled up with energy, and with nowhere for it to go, it was channeled into
this strange power. Now that she is challenging herself in the top form, all that mental energy is
being used for something else. Matilda says she is glad—she did not want to go through life as a
miracle worker.

When Matilda returns home that night, she sees a black car parked outside her house. Inside her
house, the scene is chaotic as her parents try to pack up the house. They tell her to get going and
pack, too, because the family is moving to Spain. Alarmed, Matilda runs back to Miss Honey's
house and tells her her parents are trying to move away and never come back, and Miss Honey is
not surprised, saying that Matilda's father was involved with a bunch of crooks who steal cars
and sell them.

Matilda asks to stay here and live with Miss Honey, and wonders if her parents would agree to
give her up. Miss Honey is skeptical, but she allows Matilda to drag her to her house. Matilda
begs her parents to allow her to stay with Miss Honey, and Miss Honey says she would raise the
girl and it would not cost them a penny. They agree, proving again that they never truly cared
about her. Matilda waves happily in Miss Honey's arms as her parents and brother speeding off
into the distance.

Analysis
In Chapter 20, Miss Honey makes the statement that "The whole object of life, Headmistress, is
to go forwards" (pg. 183). Though it is specifically in reference to math problems, this quote is
incredibly important to the book as a whole, and an important life lesson for Matilda. Despite her
past, which has been largely absent love and care, Matilda keeps herself looking forward to the
future. For a girl as smart as her, the future is incredibly bright, but she will never reach it if she
continuously looks backward at her past.

Matilda's actions to save Miss Honey from Miss Trunchbull show remarkable selflessness. After
discovering that she had these extraordinarily unique abilities, she could have used them for her
own benefit, to get further revenge on her parents or to show off and increase her reputation
among the other students. Instead, she uses this power solely for the good of another person:
Miss Honey. This selflessness is rare in a young child, and it further sets her apart from her
peers.

Matilda's plan is successful because it preys on Miss Trunchbull's insecurities. Though she puts
on a veneer of toughness and cruelty, years and years of hiding the truth and manipulating her
niece have brought on crippling guilt. When Matilda's floating chalk writes a message to her and
brings back the past and the wrath of Magnus, Miss Trunchbull falls prey to remorse and fear
and realizes she cannot keep up her abuse and lies any longer. Matilda's plan is so simple, but it
works because it pinpoints exactly what scares Miss Trunchbull the most.

At the end of the book, Matilda loses her supernatural power, but Miss Honey's explanation for
its existence reveals the importance of challenging the mind. Without knowledge, information,

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and learning to feed it, Matilda's mind could not figure out where to direct its energy. While the
power this resulted in was astounding, it also would have become a burden had it persisted. By
finally challenging her mind in an intellectual environment where she is an equal, Matilda can
live a normal life, and begin to flourish.

Finally, Matilda sends a vital message to readers that at the end of the day, love is more
important than blood. Even though she was related to Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood and Michael,
they were never really her family, because family is about so much more than just blood
relations. Miss Honey is the truest family Matilda has ever had, nurturing her, loving her, and
supporting her the way a parent should. Miss Honey's love allows Matilda to become the person
she was meant to be. This is why saying goodbye to her birth parents in the end is not difficult—
she knew they could never give her the care she needed, so she was happy knowing she had
found it somewhere else.

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