Roald Dahl Mind Map

1ºBach E

Mateo Franco

ROALD DAHL

Historical context

His Work

His Life

For children

interesting facts

General info

for adults

Historical context

Roald Dahl was born in 1916. This meant he was alive during both World Wars and the entirety of the Cold War. While the First World War didn't affect him much, it was the Second World War that led him to become a pilot, almost die, and later begin writing about his experiences at war, which was the beginning of his writing career. Still, appart from his intelligence services the Cold War didn't cause a huge impact on his life, as he spent most of that period as a full time writer.

Fun facts

• He was named Roald after a Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, who led the first antarctic exploration to reach the South Pole.
• During his years as a diplomat in Washington, he even worked with Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond series, and David Ogilvy, known as the ''Father of Advertising''.
• One of his most famous books, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was inspired by a time in his childhood during which Cadbury, the chocolate company, would send new flavours to be tested to the school he was in.

General Info

Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Cardiff, a Welsh town, under a rich norwegian family. At the age of three, his sister and his father passed, both from separate illnesses. After school, in 1934, he began to work for Royal Dutch Shell, the oil company, where after 4 years he was sent to work to Tanzania, where he lived luxoriously. But in late 1939, with the begginning of the Second World War, he joined the Royal Air Force. One year later, he was forced to attempt a landing in the Egyptian desert and was severly injured, but he was luckily rescued. He took one year to recover, but after some more time in duty he was invalided due to intense headaches.

After this, he became a diplomat in Washington. During those years, he also supplied intelligence to the british. This was also the time when he begun writing, short stories and his first book, all based on his wartime experiences. He then became a pilot for a bit until the end of the war. After the war, he got married to actress Patricia Neal, and ended up having five children. In 1960, one of them, Theo, was injured as a baby and suffered from hydrocephalus, which led his father to develop a medical tool that could aleviate his condition. 2 years later, his daughter Olivia died from measels. Then, in 1965, his wife suffered 3 cerebral aneurysms, but was able to recover after many months.

In 1972, he begun an 11 year long affair with Felicity d'Abreu, that ended with Dahl divorcing his previous wife and marrying Felicity. Seven years after this, in 1990, he passed away from a rare kind of blood cancer.

His work for adults

These are mainly composed by more than 60 macabre short stories. Some of the most known are:

• A Piece of Cake: his first published work, about his aerial accident in the desert.

• Someone Like You: a collection of 18 short stories, among which the most known are Lamb to the Slaughter and Skin.

• The Landlady: the short story we read in class.

• The Smoker: also known as Man from the South, it was turned into an episode of a show by Alfred Hitchcock twice, and also adapted by Quentin Tarantino for the movie Four Rooms.

His work for children

Its composed of multiple novels, among which some of the most famous are:

• The Gremlins, his first childrens book. It was inspired on his time as a war pilot.

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, arguably his most famous work.

• Matilda, another of his most known novels.

• Fantastic Mr. Fox, that was later adapted into a movie I remember quite fondly.

• The Big Friendly Giant, a book dedicated to his daughter Olivia after her death.

• James and the Giant Peach.

• Danny, the Champion of the World.