Roald Dahl’s Reception in America: The Tall Tale, Humour and the Gothic Connection

Abstract

Dahl's hyperbolic children's fantasies appeal to the American love of overstatement, a hallmark of that most American of storytelling forms: the tall tale. Humour is an essential element of the tall tale; one of its most famous practitioners was Mark Twain. Dahl's brand of humour clearly profits from this national literary form. His employment of grotesque caricature also has links with the Gothic, a mode in which Dahl excels, as does America. However, as Petzold notes, the question of whether 'there are national differences in the use of the grotesque is... yet to be investigated' (2006, p.183). It may be that American culture is more willing to embrace a particular form of the grotesque.