Special Abilities
Matilda's supreme intellect has gifted her with psychokinetic abilities, which she discovered in class one day after inadvertently tipping over a jug of water containing a live newt on her school's vicious headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, using said powers. Her capabilities of psychokinesis were confirmed on the afternoon of that same day when using the powers of her mind to tip over a glass, to the shock of herself and Miss Honey, her schoolteacher, so Matilda decides to exercise this ability at home by levitating a cigar. She continues to polish her talent, and learns of Miss Honey's traumatic and unspeakably abusive childhood at the hands of her aunt and guardian, Miss Trunchbull, after her father's unexpected death. Out of sympathy for her teacher's woes, Matilda develops a scheme in revenge against Miss Trunchbull, and in class one day she levitates a stick of chalk to the classroom's blackboard while the headmistress is visiting the room and tormenting the kindergarteners, posing as the spirit of Miss Honey's deceased father Magnus and threatening to punish Miss Trunchbull by name if she does not leave her inheritance to his daughter. Horrified, the woman completely vanishes from existence following the events of Matilda's practical joke, leaving her house and worldly possessions to her niece, without any information established relating to her current whereabouts. After the position of headmaster is overtaken by a different teacher, Matilda is relocated to the sixth-grade classroom (one of the many preventions standing in her way during Miss Trunchbull's tyranny, due to her particular hatred for especially young children and doubts regarding Matilda's genius intelligence), but finds herself unable to summon her psychokinesis one day. Miss Honey suggests that, after her promotion to the sixth grade, all of the intellect remaining unused in the kindergarten was now being exercised, so as a result Matilda had lost her gift. (However, in the film portrayal, albeit Matilda ceases using her telekinetic ability quite as frequently as before due to the more frequent use of her knowledge, she still continues to use it on occasion, whereas in the book she seems to lose it entirely). Aside from this, Matilda also specializes in the fields of reading and multiplication, having developed an astounding vocabulary and intellect during babyhood that went ignored because of her parents' immense ignorance.
Read more about this topic: Matilda Wormwood
Famous quotes containing the words special and/or abilities:
“The great rule: If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“A child is born with the potential ability to learn Chinese or Swahili, play a kazoo, climb a tree, make a strudel or a birdhouse, take pleasure in finding the coordinates of a star. Genetic inheritance determines a child’s abilities and weaknesses. But those who raise a child call forth from that matrix the traits and talents they consider important.”
—Emilie Buchwald (20th century)