The Vicar of Nibbleswicke Literary Elements

Children’s fiction; modern fairy tale

Once upon a time in the British village of Nibbleswicke.

The story is told in the third-person with a perspective that is seen through the eyes of Rev. Robert Lee.

The tone is straightforward with matter-of-fact description and occasional penetrations into the thoughts of Rev. Lee. The mood becomes somewhat ironic once Lee begins manifesting his Back-to-Front Dyslexia manner of speaking.

The protagonist is Rev. Robert Lee. The antagonist is his Back-to-Front Dyslexia which creates communication problems. Thus, this becomes a story in which the conflict is man vs. nature.

The man vs. nature is conflict is realized in the problems that is created when his Back-to-Front Dyslexia creates a communications breakdown between himself and his congregation during sermons because Rev. remains unaware that some words he speaks are coming out backwards.

The climax begins at the moment that Rev. Lee’s Back-to-Front Dyslexia reaches its worst-case scenario and the congregation reacts with stunned silence that may bring his future into doubt. Immediately, however, a local doctor diagnoses the problems and recommends the treatment of walking backwards when he talks which solves of the vicar’s problems and makes him beloved in the community.

The opening page provides a description of the basic set-up: Reverend Lee has arrived in Nibbleswicke to take over as vicar. Immediately, however, this opening also foreshadows the trouble to come without providing any details: “there was for a while utter confusion and often genuine consternation among his devout parishioners.”

N/A

The doctor that diagnoses the Reverend’s new dyslexia claims that it is very common among tortoises who call themselves esio trots. This is an allusion to Dahl’s own story, Esio Trot.

The story is a little strange because while set in a realistic world, it contains elements of fantasy and unreality. That this is not really intended to be viewed as a perfectly realistic story is situated from its opening lines which firmly cast its lots with the history of the fairy tale: “Once upon a time there lived in England a charming and God-fearing vicar named Reverend Lee.”

The vicar is given advice on who—among all the members of his congregation living in the village of Nibbleswicke—he should call upon first as his initial introduction to the rigors of carrying out his job as one of agents of morality and arbiters of good deeds. The person chosen is, by any stretch of any imagination, an example of Dahl engaging in ironic paradox: “the wealthiest and most fervent supporter of the church in Nibbleswick…Miss Arabella Prewt.”

Parallelism is engaged to punch up the humor of the situation of Reverend Lee saying certain words backwards without realizing it. At one point, for example, Mrs. Purgativa asks one is supposed to gulp communion wine or just sip it. The vicar doesn’t realize what he is actually saying when he informs her she is supposed to sip: “What you must do is pis. Pis gently. All of you, all the way along the rail, must pis, pis, pis.”

The doctor’s treatment works, the Reverend spends the rest of his life walking backwards and he is described using a metonymic term describing his service to the community at large: “he became…a pillar of the parish.”

N/A