The True Heir of Jane Eyre: Roald Dahl's Matilda Wormwood

"Roald Dahl's eponymous Matilda suffers, too, from unjust situations, and she is, in many ways, physically and intellectually like Jane Eyre, but her reactions to injustice manifest more frequently and more concretely. In Matilda (1988), the title character is a neglected child prodigy born to crooked, anti-intellectual parents who tardily send her to the repressive Crunchem Hall Primary School run by Miss Trunchbull, an anti-child headmistress with an appetite for extraordinary punishments. Matilda Wormwood is, like Jane, a slight, small child and a self-taught reader with a voracious and sophisticated appetite. Among her literary accomplishments is the reading and analysis of Jane Eyre. Matilda's impressions of Jane's childhood and education suggest the advantages of a more aggressive pursuit of justice in the face of patently unjust adults and repressive systems. Jane's generally docile responses to her situations generate pain, heartache, and humiliation; Matilda determines upon a different path, challenging rather than acquiescing to the system."