Miss Trunchbull

Agatha Trunchbull, also known as Miss Trunchbull or simply The Trunchbull, the fictional headmistress of Crunchem Hall Primary School (or Elementary School), is the main antagonist in Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel Matilda, in the 1996 film Matilda and the 2011 musical Matilda. She is said to look "more like a rather eccentric and bloodthirsty follower of the stag-hounds than the headmistress of a nice school for children".^[1]

Fictional character biography[]

Miss Trunchbull is depicted as an unwholesome role model, a fierce tyrannical monster who "frightened the life out of pupils and teachers alike", notorious for her brutal and wildly idiosyncratic discipline: trivial misdeeds (including simply wearing pigtails) incurring punishments up to potentially-fatal physical discipline. Her hatred of children is so great she denies ever having been a child herself aside from one instance in the novel where she claims she was not a child for very long and became a woman very quickly.

Miss Trunchbull is revealed to be the maternal aunt of Matilda's sweet-natured primary school teacher Miss Jennifer Honey. Miss Trunchbull served as Jennifer's childhood guardian after the passing of her parents. It's strongly implied that Agatha murdered Magnus Honey, Jennifer's father, and made it appear as a suicide. Miss Trunchbull blames Miss Honey for her sister's death. Agatha then became the legal owner of the Honey estate and Jennifer's legal guardian. Jennifer's exposure as a little girl to Agatha's abuse rendered her soft-spoken and timid. Jennifer admits she became Agatha's slave, doing the chores and housework. Once Jennifer graduated school and teachers' training college, Agatha seized hold of Jennifer's salary.

Out of adoration for her schoolteacher, Matilda uses her telekinetic abilities to drive Agatha from her own house one day by posing as Magnus' spirit and levitating a chalk stick to scrawl a message on the board. Terrified, Miss Trunchbull subsequently vanishes, and gives back her house to her niece, after which Miss Honey becomes the new headmistress.

It is revealed that Miss Trunchbull is very superstitious and has an intense fear of ghosts, black cats, and the supernatural in general. Her fear is later used as a weakness for Matilda to scare her thus teaching Miss Trunchbull a lesson.

Miss Trunchbull was a past shot putter, hammer, and javelin thrower in the Munich Olympics. She often throws children and uses a crop to scare children as punishment, which often ends in accidents or injuries. She is brutal to all children and also made a boy (Bruce Bogtrotter) eat a colossal chocolate cake as punishment for apparently eating a piece of her own chocolate cake only to make the children rewrite the dictionary by hand and blaming Bruce for eating the whole cake in the first place.

Inspiration[]

As children, Roald Dahl and his friends played a trick on the local sweet-shop owner—a "mean and loathsome" old woman named Mrs. Pratchett—by putting a dead mouse in a gobstopper jar. This would inspire Dahl to include a scene in Matilda where Matilda's friend Lavender puts a newt into Miss Trunchbull's water jug.^[2]

Portrayals[]

Miss Trunchbull is portrayed by Pam Ferris in the film,^[3] and by Bertie Carvel in the musical,^[4] later replaced by former Two of a Kind and Shrek The Musical star Christopher Sieber.^[5]

Miriam Margolyes confirmed that she auditioned for the role (before Ferris was cast) during a filmed interview with Jo Brand for the UK television special Roald Dahl's Revolting Rule Book which was hosted by Richard E. Grant and aired on September 22, 2007. This documentary commemorated Dahl's 90th birthday and also celebrated his impact as a children's author in popular culture.^[6]

References[]