How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"Mummy," Matilda said, "would you mind if I ate my supper in the dining-room so I could read my book?"
The father glanced up sharply. "I would mind!" he snapped. "Supper is a family gathering and no one leaves the table till it's over!"
"But we're not at the table," Matilda said. "We never are. We're always eating off our knees and watching the telly." (2.35-6)
In the Wormwood household, dinnertime is family time in name only. Really, it's just an excuse for these lazy-bones parents to watch TV. It's not like they're chatting up their kids or talking about their days. So Mr. Wormwood's high and mighty rant is really just a cover-up for the fact that he'd rather stare at a screen all night than have a conversation with his own daughter.
Quote #5
In any event, parents never underestimated the abilities of their own children. Quite the reverse. Sometimes it was well nigh impossible for a teacher to convince the proud father or mother that their beloved offspring was a complete nitwit. Miss Honey felt confident that she would have no difficulty in convincing Mr and Mrs Wormwood that Matilda was something very special indeed. The trouble was going to be to stop them from getting over-enthusiastic. (9.8)
Oh, Miss Honey. Forgive us for calling you a bit naïve. Like the narrator at the beginning of the book, she expects most parents to be naturally interested in their kids and think the best of them. But she hasn't met the Wormwoods. She has no idea just how uninvolved and uncaring parents can be.
Quote #6
Do any of us children, she [Matilda] wondered, ever stop to ask ourselves where our teachers go when school is over for the day? Do we wonder if they live alone, or if there is a mother at home or a sister or a husband? "Do you live all by yourself, Miss Honey?" she asked. (16.34)
In this mini-epiphany, Matilda realizes she never thought about people like teachers having families before. While we're betting that most kids don't think about this either, Matilda isn't most kids. Maybe it wasn't on Matilda's radar because her own family is so awful. She'd probably forget them if she could, so why try thinking about other people's families, too?