So the little girl is trapped there in the painting and stays there for years and years til she turns old and vanishes (presumably dying). It must have been a horrible existence. Wouldn't it have been more humane for her parents to burn/destroy the painting? I'm mean I'm sure they found maybe some comfort in knowing she was about in some form or other, but if so that would make it selfish of them to just keep her in there
shareI'm guessing burning the painting would have been the equivalent to burning her alive. She might have felt it.
shareOK but how about slicing her image out or something so she "dies" a fast and humane death?
shareOK but how about slicing her image out or something so she "dies" a fast and humane death?
shareI don't know if just cutting her image out of the picture would work. Maybe there was no way to kill her humanely. But it would have been better than spending years trapped in a painting. I'd rather be dead than have to suffer that.
shareYeah, exactly! It makes me shudder just thinking about it
shareThat's what Dahl does best. Putting the creepy into kids tales.
shareWhy would you kill her? I'd rather she lives some life than none at all!
shareBut it's a horrible life! Trapped in a painting unable to do anything- eat, get a job, make friends, start a family etc. It's so inhumane to keep her there like that. It's similar to being in a coma only she's aware of everything.
shareExactly. She's staring out at a world she's lost while she's trapped in a painting. It's cruel.
share"Why would you kill her? I'd rather she lives some life than none at all!"
In a ****ing painting? That's a living nightmare. Let me guess, you are the same type to want to keep someone on life support if they are a vegetable because they "have a right to life".
i'm pretty sure there would have been no way to have cut her out, the witch would have made sure of that
shareWe have no idea what the world of the painting was like. It may have been beautiful and dream-like for all we know. She may have seen her family as a painting and thought she was living in an alternate reality.
shareWe have no idea what the world of the painting was like. It may have been beautiful and dream-like for all we know.
Yeah. Imagine being stuck in ones place for decades and decades until you were old, never seeing or speaking to another human being again. It would drive a living person insane.
shareI don't know but the eeriness of the concept has always stuck with me.
shareI always thought the painting story was the creepiest part of The Witches. And yeah, it's quite depressing as well.
Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!
If the father had wanted to or thought about it, maybe he could have painted himself and his wife into the painting to be with her and paint a husband into the picture later on as she got older, although her life in the painting couldnt have been too much fun, the father or even another artist could have painted more for her to do, or wear, or eat and play with.
shareShe was living out her life in the painting. She was fine.
share[deleted]