The Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is now ‘huge’ instead of ‘fat’ and the Oompa Loompas are little people instead of little men. Mrs. Twit from The Cretins is no longer ‘ugly’ and bestial. She now she is only bestial.
Political correctness has reached the books of British novelist Roald Dahl, author of children’s stories full of humor and imagination, such as Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or James and the Giant Peach. The Puffin publishing house has hired “sensitive” readers to rewrite fragments of the texts to ensure that “they can continue to be enjoyed by all today.”
Above all, the descriptions of the physical appearance of the characters have been retouched, according to the Daily Telegraph: the words “fat” and “ugly” have disappeared from the books.
In The Witches, according to The Guardian, in the paragraph where the witches are said to be bald under their wigs, a sentence is added that Dahl never wrote: “There are many other reasons why women may wear wigs. and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.”
According to the British media, Mr. Fox’s three children are now daughters. Matilda no longer reads Rudyard Kipling, but Jane Austen, and a witch who once posed as a supermarket cashier is now a “high-level scientist.” The words black and white are not used either, and “crazy” or “insane” are not used in defense of mental health.
The publisher, Puffin, and the Roald Dahl Story Company have made the changes together with “Inclusive Minds,” a group its spokesperson describes as “a collective for people passionate about inclusion and accessibility in children’s literature.”
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
