The Twits

This first section of the book introduces the title characters, themes, and narrative style. Mr. and Mrs. Twit have terrible personalities. Several chapters contain the tricks the couple play on one another, and these tricks exemplify two of the book’s major themes: Actions Have Consequences and The Benefits of Quick Thinking. The descriptions of Mr. and Mrs. Twit, which establish them as ugly on both the outside and in, convey the idea that inner ugliness shows through no matter what we do. Mr. Twit’s disgusting beard and Mrs. Twit’s walking stick are used to show how terrible each is. The beard sets Mr. Twit up as someone who doesn’t care about his appearance or personal hygiene, and the result is a grumpy man made ugly by his unkempt facial hair. Mrs. Twit primarily uses her walking stick to hit things (typically the monkeys present in the latter half of the book), and thus the stick is a physical manifestation of her mean spirit.

The characteristics these objects show in the Twits are reflected in the tricks the couple plays. The glass eye trick in Chapter 5 jumpstarts a series of increasingly elaborate and outlandish pranks, each with more potential for harm than the last. The Twits build off one another’s antics to develop worse and worse tricks. The tricks are ironically offset by their inability to realize how the other has gotten the better of them. In Chapter 10, when Mr. Twit ties Mrs. Twit to the iron ring and balloons to stretch her, she is so absorbed with her fear over the shrinks that she doesn’t realize the danger of her situation. She even asks her husband if he’s tied her down tightly enough when she should truly be concerned that she is being pulled so strongly in opposite directions. In addition, the question gives Mr. Twit the idea to cut her loose and be rid of her, so Mrs. Twit unwittingly helps her husband play a trick on her. Once in the sky, Mrs. Twit finds a way to save herself, showing The Benefits of Quick Thinking, and plots revenge on her husband, both for his own ideas and the ones she gave him.

Dahl’s works often incorporate children and animals coming out ahead of outrageously terrible adults, and this facet of his stories is present in The Twits. The frog in Chapter 6 shows an animal benefitting from the Twits’ tricks and foreshadows how the monkeys and birds get the better of the Twits in later chapters. Mr. Twit, not caring what effect it will have on the frog, puts the creature in Mrs. Twit’s bed to frighten her. When the frog starts wriggling to get free, Mr. Twit’s trick succeeds even though the frog is only doing what it would normally do. Mr. Twit pours the water over Mrs. Twit to rouse her from fainting. Mrs. Twit awakes, but the water also makes the frog happy. While Mrs. Twit runs away, the frog happily splashes around and then falls asleep on Mrs. Twit’s comfortable pillow, showing how a trick on one person may bring about unexpected benefits for someone else and highlighting how Teamwork Brings Us Together in an unusual way.

Dahl’s narrative style makes use of breaking the fourth wall, a theater term used to describe actors acknowledging or speaking directly to the audience. The first, second, and third walls are the walls of the set (the set behind the characters and the sides of the stage on the right and left). The invisible fourth wall, that between the characters and the audience, is broken in this technique. In Chapter 1, for example, Dahl directly tells the reader to start asking questions, and while he is speaking specifically about beards here, the message applies to anything. These words are advice to the book’s audience, mainly children, and emphasize the importance of questioning their world and not accepting things at face value (literally and otherwise). Dahl also uses this technique to deliver information. In Chapter 2, he describes Mr. Twit and his beard before asking the reader how often they think Mr. Twit washes his face. Dahl then gives the answer, and this dialogue between narrator and audience allows young readers to feel closer to the events and as if they are more involved in the story. Later, in Chapter 14, Dahl uses this narrative style as a type of foreshadowing. After describing the Twits’ house and garden, he mentions the monkeys and ends the chapter by telling the reader they will hear more about the monkeys later. This information tells readers that the monkeys will play a bigger role in the story, and it helps them know what will be important so they can remember to keep track of it as they read.