Queen Elizabeth II: Mother to a Nation Part 2

In The BFG, Sophie watches as the giants run away.  The Big Friendly Giant has told her that every night, while he travels the world bringing pleasant dreams to children, the other giants venture out and eat humans.  Although the BFG feels bad about this, he doesn’t see how he can convince them to change their ways.  The only plant that grows in their land is the Snozzcumber, and it tastes so revolting that none of the other giants will eat them.

But Sophie feels she must do something.  After all, tonight the giants are heading off to her country, to eat her fellow British citizens.

So she concocts a plan.  Using the BFG’s stores of collected dreams, Sophie has him mix a nightmare about giants snatching British citizens out of their homes and eating them.  Then she asks him to take her to Buckingham Palace.  Using his trumpet-like device, he blows this nightmare into the Queen’s bedroom.  Needless to say, when the Queen awakes, and Sophie tells her that her nightmare was true, the Queen bursts into action.

Queen Elizabeth II,
captured by renowned illustrator Quentin Blake

She calls the kings and queens of other countries.  She summons the heads of the British Army and Royal Air Force.  While she awaits their arrival, she sits down for breakfast and asks Sophie and the BFG to explain the situation, and suggest how she can remedy it. 

I'm glad the BFG enjoyed his breakfast,
but oh, that poor piano.
And those grandfather clocks!

Her butler organizes the staff, and he fashions a table and chair for the BFG.  Then he watches, aghast, as the giant eats up all the food the cooks serve up, until the royal pantries are emptied (and the BFG discovers that the humans’ food tastes infinitely better than those yucky Snozzcumbers).

When the heads of her military seem incapable of coming up with a means of capturing the other giants, the Queen turns to the BFG and Sophie, who offer her a solution.  The heads of the Army and Air Force don’t like it, but they agree to go along with this strange plan concocted by a giant and an orphan girl.  After all, they can’t really refuse a royal command.

While other authors might have portrayed the situation more realistically, Dahl never mentions the important roles that the Prime Minister, the other Ministers, or the Houses of Parliament play in the everyday running of the United Kingdom.  Instead, he has Sophie take her problems directly to Queen Elizabeth II.  Far from being remote and unconcerned, the Queen is horrified at the thought of her subjects’ needless deaths.  A politician, faced with the same situation, would gauge public reaction to various proposed remedies, and ensure he had the necessary support to weather any potential backlash before he committed himself to a particular plan.  But the Queen acts like a mother whose children are threatened, she immediately takes charge of the situation, and demonstrates how relevant she is to her country by her decisions. 

You know, maybe America really does need a Queen.

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Illustrator Quentin Blake, who the Queen recently awarded with a knighthood, has a wonderful website.  Check it out at quentinblake.com

Roald Dahl: The Importance of Mothers Part 2

Alas, our See's Easter Eggs have vanished.
Please come to our aid, Willy Wonka!

In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie lives in a small house with his mother and father, who care for his four grandparents.  As the house is small, his grandparents share the bed, while Charlie and his parents sleep on the floor.  As his father’s meager wages from the toothpaste factory must satisfy all their needs, Charlie’s mother has little money for food, and sometimes she and his father miss a meal to ensure Charlie has enough to eat.  But when his father loses his job, and only brings home a fraction of his former pay shoveling snow, Charlie refuses to take their portion of food.  Instead, he stops playing, and refuses to do anything that will make his body burn precious calories.  Even so, he grows dangerously thin.

Contrast Charlie with Augustus Gloop, a nine-year-old boy who finds the first Golden Ticket for a tour of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.  He was, in Roald Dahl's words, so enormously fat he looked as though he had been blown up with a powerful pump.  Great flabby folds of fat bulged out from every part of his body, and his face was like a monstrous ball of dough with two small greedy curranty eyes peering out upon the world. 

“I just knew Augustus would find a Golden Ticket,” his mother had told the newspapermen.  “He eats so many candy bars a day that it was almost impossible for him not to find one.  Eating is his hobby, you know.  That’s all he’s interested in.  But still, that’s better than being a hooligan and shooting off zip guns and things like that in his spare time, isn’t it?”

Or how about Veruca Salt, the girl who lived with her rich parents?  When she heard about the Golden Tickets, she told her father that she simply had to have one.  So her father, who owns a peanut business, stops buying peanuts and buys Wonka candy bars by the hundreds of thousands.  Each night, his father went home to find his daughter lying on the floor for hours, kicking and yelling and screaming for her Golden Ticket.  So on the third day, one of his workers found a ticket inside a candy bar wrapper.  The newspaper carried a picture of Veruca sitting between her beaming parents, and the girl was grinning from ear to ear.  

Better yet, meet the third lucky ticket holder, Violet Beauregard.  She stands on a chair in her living room, loudly telling the assembled reporters how much she enjoys chewing gum all the time.  “My mother says it’s not ladylike and it looks ugly to see a girl’s jaws going up and down like mine do all the time, but I don’t agree.  And who’s she to criticize, anyway, because if you ask me, I’d say that her jaws are going up and down almost as much as mine are just from yelling at me every minute of the day.”

“Now Violet,” Mrs. Beauregard said from a far corner of the room where she was standing on the piano to avoid being trampled by the mob.

“All right, Mother, keep your hair on!” Miss Beauregard shouted, and goes on to tell the reporters about her record for continuous gum chewing.

Strangely, the fourth ticket holder, Mike Teavee, grows annoyed by the reporters who swarm his living room.  “Can’t you fools see I’m watching television?” he asks angrily, “I wish you wouldn’t interrupt.”  He then goes on to tell the reporters how much he enjoys all the shows involving guns and gangsters and shootings.  “Their terrific, those gangsters!” he says.  “Especially when they start pumping each other full of lead, or flashing the old stilettos, or giving each other the one-two-three with their knuckle-dusters!  Oh boy, what wouldn’t I give to be doing that myself!”

Clearly, a mother’s presence alone is not enough.  For a person to grow up respectful of others, and capable of acting responsibly in society, more is required.

On the day of the tour, the other four children show up with both parents, who are beaming and dressed to the hilt.  Charlie’s father decided he didn’t deserve to go, but Charlie’s grandpa Joe did, as he had fed the boy’s dreams of touring Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.  And his mother feels it’s her duty to stay home and care for the other three grandparents, so she consigns Charlie to his grandfather’s care, knowing that her presence is not necessary for the boy to conduct himself properly during the tour.

Despite the presence of both parents, the other four lucky ticket holders lack Charlie’s maturity and discipline, and come to grief amid so many fantastic temptations.  Charlie, on the other hand…well, let’s just say that he does his mother proud.

Dragon Dave

Roald Dahl: The Importance of Mothers Part 1

From The BFG by Roald Dahl:

“This is Giant Country,” the BFG said.  “Those is all giants, every one.”

It was a brain-boggling sight.  The giants were all naked except for a sort of short skirt around their waists, and their skins were burnt brown by the sun.  But it was the sheer size of each one of them that boggled Sophie’s brain most of all.  They were simply colossal.

“What on earth are they doing?” Sophie asked.

“Nothing,” said the BFG.  “They is just moocheling and footcheling around and waiting for the night to come.  Then they will all be galloping off to places were people is living to find their suppers.”

“Do they ever go to England?” Sophie asked.

“Often,” said the BFG.  “They say the English is tasting ever so wonderfully of crodscollop.”

“I’m not sure I quite know what that means,” Sophie said.

“Meanings is not important,” said the BFG.  “I cannot be right all the time.  Quite often I is left instead of right.”

The BFG then produces a strange-looking vegetable.

“Here is the repulsant snozzcumber!” cried the BFG, waiving it about.  “I squiggle it!  I mispise it!  I dispunge it!  But because I is refusing to gobble up human beans like the other giants, I must spend my life guzzling up icky-poo snozzcumbers instead.  If I don’t, I will be nothing but skin and groans.

“You mean skin and bones,” Sophie said.

“I know it is bones,” the BFG said.  “But please understand that I cannot be helping it if I sometimes is saying things a little squiggly.  I is trying my very best all the time.”  The Big Friendly Giant looked suddenly so forlorn that Sophie got quite upset.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“There never was any schools to teach me talking in Giant Country,” the BFG said sadly.

“But couldn’t your mother have taught you?” Sophie asked.

“My mother!” cried the BFG.  Giants don’t have mothers!  Surely you is knowing that!”

Traditionally, mothers have stayed at home and taken care of their children.  While that aspect of society may be changing, far more women than men tend to pause or stop their careers to take care of their children.  Unlike humans, the giants are a single-sex species.  Without a mother’s influence, they must learn to speak on their own.  Using a book written by a human, the BFG has taught himself to read and write.  But still, communicating with others proves difficult.

When speaking with family and friends, I may not always make my meaning clear.  Strangers may not catch the intended humor in a statement, as they don’t know me.  When writing, I often have to edit a letter, post or story several times to ensure that it says exactly what I intend it to.  Thanks to Roald Dahl's novel, The BFG, I’m reminded how poor my communication skills might have been, had it not been for a mother who stayed home with me, talked with me, and (last, but certainly not least) always made sure I had plenty to read.

Thanks, Mom!

Dragon Dave

Selected portions of The BFG come from Chapter 6: The Giants and Chapter 8: Snozzcumbers.

The Role of Mothers in Babylon 5: Part 2

As in the TV series, Security Chief Michael Garibaldi plays an important role in the first two Babylon 5 novels: Voices, by John Vornholt, and Accusations, by Lois Tilton.  He regards Commander Susan Ivanova as a friend, and so he works hard to clear her name in Accusations, despite all the roadblocks the Earth inspectors throw in his path.  While he’s never forgotten Lise Hampton, the woman he left behind on Mars when he took the job aboard Babylon 5, he feels drawn to the telepath Talia Winters.  Although she doesn’t return his interest, he nonetheless cares for her.  When she flees the station in Voices, he follows her to Earth.  He knows he’ll have no official authority there, but it’s his only chance to protect her from the Psi Cops intent upon killing her. 

Michael Garibaldi was raised in the Bronx of New York, but his mother seems to have played no role whatsoever in his life.  His father worked in law enforcement, was an excellent cook, and the life of any party (particularly any dinner party).  Michael followed in his father’s footsteps, pursuing a career in Security.  Yet his life somehow took several wrong turns, giving him a bad name in his chosen career, wrecking promising relationships, and driving him into alcoholism. 

In the episode, “A Distant Star” (written by D. C. Fontana), we learn that Garibaldi always makes the Italian dish Bagna Cauda on his birthday.  “Now Pop was a great cook, and Bagna was his specialty,” Garibaldi tells Dr. Stephen Franklin, who in the episode is trying to force him onto a diet.  

"You know, this dish is loaded with fat!
Wow, hang on, that's good!"

"Too bad, Doc.
You disrespected the Bagna Cauda, so
I'm keepin' the dessert to myself."

Over the course of the series, Garibaldi leaves his job to start his own business, ends up being manipulated by the evil Psi Cop Bester, and reverts to alcoholism.  Because of the stresses he endures, or simply because he ate too many Bagna Caudas (a dish consisting of Olive Oil, Butter, Garlic, Anchovies, and pepper, served up like fondue), Garibaldi grows increasingly overweight.  He never mentions his mother, but tells Franklin that his father, who has been dead for a long time, always made him the dish to show him that he loved him, even if he could never say it.  Perhaps his father might have found it easier to express his feelings, and Garibaldi might have endured fewer hardships, had his mother played a greater role in his life.

Captain John Sheridan, who commands Babylon 5, facilitates Garibaldi’s efforts to protect Talia Winters and Susan Ivanova.  Although he never emerges as a primary character in either novel, he becomes the most important person in the TV series.  After winning two wars, he retires from Earth’s military, marries the Minbari ambassador Delenn, and settles into his new career as President of the Interstellar Alliance.  He frequently tells Delenn stories about growing up on Earth with a mother and father who always did their best to take care of him, and never left him in any doubt as to their love and respect for him. 

While Talia Winters’ life ends in tragedy, Susan Ivanova finishes her Earthforce career as a general.  She never marries, but after she leaves the military, commits her life to serving as the head of the Rangers.  Michael Garibaldi eventually marries Lise Hampton-Edgars, and rules her former husband's corporation Edgars Industries.  However, neither he nor Ivanova end up as powerful and important as John Sheridan, and both have to battle inner demons throughout their lives.  So there you have it, a testimony to the importance of mothers in the space age, courtesy of Babylon 5, writers John Vornholt, Lois Tilton, and D. C. Fontana, and series creator J. Michael Straczynski.  If you want to live a happy life, suffer a minimum of inner turmoil, and end up ruling the universe, a loving, supportive, and nurturing mother is absolutely essential.  I’ve benefitted from my mother’s influence in my life.  How about you?

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there who play a strong supportive role in your children’s lives.  (Even if, for some unfathomable reason, you don’t love Babylon 5). 

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Notes on "A Distant Star" and a recipe for Garibaldi's Bagna Cauda