Aaron Tracy

And then...

it's revealed towards the end of the story that the child is Adolf Hitler.

And so you find yourself in this fascinating and uncomfortable position of having your concern about this child put into stark tension with your moral abhorrence of Hitler.

And the thing about the story is that it seems very clearly designed in order to put you in that state of tension.

It seems like you're supposed to have that feeling of, oh my gosh, I was so concerned for this child, but it's Hitler.

You know, how do I grapple with that?

So once you then put that into this further context of knowing about Dahl's antisemitism, then it can make you feel even further tension.

You're like, wait, was that interpretation I just gave the story the right one?

Are you supposed to feel attention?

Is it not actually creating that particular kind of tension because there's some sort of implicit endorsement?

endorsement of the idea that you should be concerned about the survival of baby Adolf Hitler.

I think it adds even further intrigue to the story and enhances some of the aesthetic delight and weirdness of it.

I think when you engage in this kind of process that I was just modeling here, sort of thinking through how do I fit this knowledge with my experience of the story, it's not that we're always going to have some really specific answer that we come out with on the other end.

We're not just going to say like,

Oh, yes, actually, the story just sort of confirms Dahl's anti-Semitism.

I think there's still space to think, no, it actually is the first interpretation.

The story really is trying to get you to feel this tension.

And that's the case independently of whatever feelings Dahl might himself have had.

This kind of knowledge about the moral life of the artist often just enhances our experience of engaging with their work.

It makes it sometimes even more complex and complicated.