The Boy Who Talked With Animals Symbolism is a powerful way to describe and emphasize ideas using characters and items in stories and giving them double meaning. Roald Dahl shows this in “The Boy Who Talked With Animals,” when on a vacation in Kingston Jamaica, a little boy, David, tries to save a turtle, and that leads society to rethink what they have been doing. Since the little boy is motivated by compassion his decision to stand up t a crowd of men creates an understanding by the end of the story.
In the story, David is shown as a young boy instead of a man to represent innocence. When the family of three first arries, David calls out to his dad to do something, but simply, the reply was,”I can’t do that David...It isn’t any of our business” (Dahl 7). Although David understands he needs help, he doesn’t understand that the world is not perfect and and not everything can go his way, all the time. He is losing innocence, but he is still a child with a lot of world to learn. If the author would have used a man, the idea that not fully understanding the world affects how a person impacts society would not be as strong. …show more content…
Right as David is introduced, the characters show signs of change, “They had a slightly hangdog air of people who had been caught doing something not entirely honourable” (Dahl 7). A small boy ran in and alarmed the older men who are like society in a small way but this small boy has just enough power to show this as strongly society what they are doing is, “not entirely honourable” (Dahl 7). Without a boy in this story, Dahl would not be able to show this as strongly because a man is at the same level as every other man, bit a boy is typically less than a man and with the ability to impact society is shown through the boy's