Book: The BFG by Roald Dahl

Literary Criticism on Structuralism Theory

The author of this book, Roald Dahl is a famous children book’s author. The BFG was published in 1982 and adapted into film twice, in 1989 and 2016. The genre for this book is a fantasy adventure which depicts about an orphan girl named Sophie who was kidnapped by a giant man called the BFG, an abbreviation for the Big Friendly Giant which Sophie did not know at first that makes her really scared of him. It is natural for her to feel that way because, for children, the signified ‘giant’ often signifies as ‘a scary-looking and man-eating being’. This signifier exists through the nine other nasty giants’ character that was pictured as 50-feet-tall, powerful, and man-eating giants such as the Fleshlumpeater, the Bloodbottler, the Manhugger, the Meatdripper, the Childchewer, and et cetera. Later, what she found from the BFG was contradict with these characteristics where he is a nice friendly giant who does not eat humans. The BFG’s weak and good personality is contradicting with the associative relationship of the usual characteristics of a giant which is perceived as mean and nasty.

Adhering to the structuralism theory, Dahl truly expressed the adventurous genre of this book where he made Sophie and the BFG went on a journey to the Giant Country. There, Sophie got to see a new world which is much bigger than her original place; the enormous things in the BFG’s cave house, the massive jars of dream, and the gigantic giants other than the BFG. Roald Dahl also clearly illustrated the fantastical theme of this book through many events that involve dreams such as catching dreams into jars, exploring the Dream Country, watching a boy’s dream, mixing dreams for the Queen, and blowing dreams into the children, the other giants, and the Queen. According to the structuralist view, this book is a part of the system of recurrent patterns or motifs of Roald Dahl’s writings where the themes and plots are similar to his other children’s books including Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, The BFG, Matilda, and James and The Giant Peach, all of which have been made into films. In general, this book and its author mostly adhere to the Theory of Structuralism that was introduced by Ferdinand De Saussure.