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My point is that there's an underlying moral lesson to the bullying he received: the idea that the pain and abuse will lead to positive results in the child. And further that the abuse isn't just punishment, but that abuse itself can lead to virtue. That's why it's applied to every young boy systematically.

In his books Dahl doesn't just describe revenge, but describes it as a way to actually correct behavior, as a way for the universe to give the powerful a lesson. He's certainly turning around the power dynamic, but the moral justification for abuse remains intact.




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