Quote 10
"Mummy," Matilda said, "would you mind if I ate my supper in the dining-room so I could read my book?"
The father glanced up sharply. "I would mind!" he snapped. "Supper is a family gathering and no one leaves the table till it's over!"
"But we're not at the table," Matilda said. "We never are. We're always eating off our knees and watching the telly." (2.35-6)
In the Wormwood household, dinnertime is family time in name only. Really, it's just an excuse for these lazy-bones parents to watch TV. It's not like they're chatting up their kids or talking about their days. So Mr. Wormwood's high and mighty rant is really just a cover-up for the fact that he'd rather stare at a screen all night than have a conversation with his own daughter.
Quote 11
Do any of us children, she [Matilda] wondered, ever stop to ask ourselves where our teachers go when school is over for the day? Do we wonder if they live alone, or if there is a mother at home or a sister or a husband? "Do you live all by yourself, Miss Honey?" she asked. (16.34)
In this mini-epiphany, Matilda realizes she never thought about people like teachers having families before. While we're betting that most kids don't think about this either, Matilda isn't most kids. Maybe it wasn't on Matilda's radar because her own family is so awful. She'd probably forget them if she could, so why try thinking about other people's families, too?
"He wouldn't [believe you]," Matilda said. "And the reason is obvious. Your story would sound too ridiculous to be believed. And that is the Trunchbull's great secret."
"What is?" Lavender asked.
Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable. No parent is going to believe this pigtail story, not in a million years. Mine wouldn't. They'd call me a liar." (11.4-6)
Oh so that's why the Trunchbull gets away with her outrageous abuse. She can use punishments like The Chokey to imprison kids because she knows no one would believe the youngsters if they ever complained.