Toad And The Snail: An Analysis Of Roald Dahl's Poem

The Toad and the Snail
An Analysis of Roald Dahl's Poem In the poem "The Toad and the Snail" in the book 'Dirty Beasts' by Roald Dahl, a kid embarks on a mini-adventure on a toal which turns into a snail and finally a roly-poly bird all inside his imagination. The book is primarily aimed for children, because of its simple rhyme and its funny and creative story. Although the book is aimed at children, the book empathizes more on the subject of a seperate imaginitive world, nostalgia, gap between young and old, and also a darker side of things as well. The poem starts off very strangely, a little boy playing in a lily-pond which he is very much fond of. This brings back memories for the adults reading the story, a feeling of nostalgia. Every adult used to be a kid at one point in their life, and they all have a fond memory of their

This book is dubbed as a children's book, so to get around this Roald Dahl would hide meaning through darker sides of thing. The topic of racism is also explored in the poem, a much darker side of the poem. The French people are inside the poem were depicted as not welcoming, disgusting, and overall not appealing. This would set a kid's view of certain people wrong for a while, but to adults they would most certainly understand the joke. The view of the French being so different, to the audience which is aimed at British people. There are many reference of the difference between these two nationalities lines such as " A Frenchman frequently regales/ Himself with half a dozen snails". When we talk about snails, most of us would think of them as disgusting and certainly not appetizing in our head. To the audience of British people especially adults, they would most certainly get the joke. Racism isn't exactly something that exists in a mind of a kid, kids usually always get along together no matter what race. Adults though, most certainly grasps the concept of