“There were always plenty of other children for him to play with, and there was a sandy beach for him to run about on, and the ocean to paddle in. It was the perfect life for a small boy.”

In this quote, Dahl succinctly captures James’s idyllic life before his parents were killed. Three things that matter the most to James—his friends, the ocean, and the beach—are introduced here. Friends and the ocean recur throughout the book as symbols of loss, triggering sadness when James remembers his home, and hope, since the ocean and new friends enable James to escape and start a new, happy life.

“The hill was so high that […] if he looked in the right direction, he could see a tiny grey dot far away on the horizon, which was the house that he used to live in with his beloved mother and father.”

James’s feeling of longing and loneliness are captured in this passage. James has no toys, books, or anything fun to distract him from his loss, so all he can do is gaze at reminders of the loving life he had before. The house as a tiny dot illustrates how far his life with Spiker and Sponge is from the life he used to have.

“And there they sat, these two ghastly hags, sipping their drinks, and every now and again screaming at James to chop faster and faster. They also talked about themselves, each one saying how beautiful she thought she was.”

This description of James’s aunts, Spiker and Sponge, sums up their characteristics. As they sit and watch James do all the work, the greed, laziness, and cruelty of the aunts is portrayed. Their narcissism is shown by their self-appraisal of beauty, despite both being hideously ugly.