Summary of The Wish - Roald Dahl

THE WISH

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was a British poet, novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and war time fighter. He was born in Wales of Norwegian immigrant parents. He spent his childhood in England and, at the age of eighteen, went to work for the Shell Oil Company in Africa. When the World War II broke out, he joined the Royal Air Force and became a fighter pilot. 

The story 'The Wish' is about a young boy and his imaginative game of carpet. He fantasies that his carpet is alive with snakes and fire. Using imagery and metaphor, Dahl uses the character of a curiously imaginative young boy to help us reflect on the delicacy of our childhood innocence. This story goes inside the mind of a young child to explore his imagination. This is about a young boy who had a frightening event in his childhood. 

SUMMARY:

 

This story is completely based on the imagination of the main character who is a child. This story has presented imaginative acts of this main character in an imaginative game of red carpet. This story itself is fictious story where the characters are unnamed. This story has also mentioned this main character’s mother at the end of the story.

 

In The Wish, a boy uses his imagination to travel across a red, black, and yellow carpet that he pretends has treacherous (untrustworthy) parts, motivating himself with the fantasy of receiving a puppy if he is successful. The child's point of view is more interesting and effective than the narrator's, because it is vivid and suspenseful. The story is primarily about self-confidence overcoming fear rather than about greed. Here the main character has expected to get a puppy in his birthday after coming across the red carpet and reaching inside safely. But the long for the puppy in Birthday finishes as the child falls in the black spot of the carpet and loses his imaginative game.

 

This story has presented the setting of house front door’s stairs and inside the hall where the huge red carpet has been placed. This imaginative game is about crossing the hall’s red carpet stepping on the right colours and reaching inside from outside front door’s stairs. 

In the very first scene, we find an unnamed child looking at his kneecap’s scab. He was sitting alone on his front door’s stairs. He had an old cut on his kneecap and its scab was brown. He bent forward to examine it closely. After pondering much, he decided to pick that scab from his wound. He picked his scab gently with his nail and put it on his thigh. He rubbed his wound’s circle and flipped the scab with his finger.

The scab fell upon the edge of the red carpet. When he moved near the scab, different colours of the carpet attracted his attention. He imagined different things in those colours of carpet. He creatively imagined a game plan using different colours of the carpet. In his imagination, he supposed that the red parts of the carpet are burning coals and the black parts snakes. He decides that only the yellow areas are safe and makes up a story that if he can get to the front door walking only on the yellow parts, avoiding the coals and the snakes, he will be rewarded with a puppy. The yellow coloured spots were only the safe zones for him where he could step and cross the huge carpet to get inside. 

The child imagined very tough and terrible game plan to reach the goal (the wish of completing his game and getting a puppy). The child started to move ahead in his imaginative game. He moved ahead stepping on the yellow coloured spots only. He kept moving ahead very carefully stepping on the safe zone.

 

As he reached the halfway across, he started to wobble (tremble) around. He balanced his body by waving his arms. He did not get a proper step ahead. He started to panic because there was no turning back due to his body position. The black coloured spots ahead made him so panic. He remained there on the yellow safe zone for a long time. He waited and thought about the possible ways to move ahead. 

 

The fear of not getting the puppy compelled him to continue his way ahead. He made proper use of his mind, paused himself and stepped further quite carefully.

 

Just a step ahead of the halfway, the child had to make a decision. He had to choose an option whether to move on the left or the right. The left side was more difficult for him to step, but there were less black spots there. So he decided to move ahead using the left side. He took his next step on the yellow spot. He happened to touch the black spot which was a centimetre close. He felt so panic because he was nearly going to be beaten by a snake. But his luck saved him. 

 

Again he had an option to choose. He could have gone right but he went left instead because he feared about black poisonous snakes. In his imagination, the snake looked up to see if he passed it or not. In a very funny tongue, the child said, “I’m not touching you! You mustn’t bite me! You know I’m not touching you!”

 

He continued his journey ahead. His next step was quite far. He decided to step slowly over. But when he jumped ahead, his feet fell on the spots so wide. He tried to get back but couldn’t. He tried to shift all his weight to his front foot, but he couldn’t. He was properly stuck. 

 

The snakes started stirring underneath his feet. He started to wobble being panic. He tried to balance himself by waving his arms however but it didn’t work. He slowly started to fall towards the black. He gave a loud cry as he touched the black. His mother was looking for him far behind the house outside in the sunshine.

 

The story ends mysteriously with his mother looking for him behind the house. Because of the ending, some critics interpret the story not as a boy crossing a carpet pretending it is a dangerous swamp (a situation fraught with difficulties and imponderables) but as a boy gathering courage to cross a swamp by pretending it is a carpet.

 

This is a story about self-confidence overcoming fear. We could argue that the boy is motivated by greed—wanting the dog—but that seems secondary to the desire to face and overcome a challenges. The boy, after all, knows that he is not really going to be rewarded with a puppy.