The BFG

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Consider the word “giant.” What image comes to mind? Does this word have a positive or negative connotation? Can you think of a piece of literature, film, or television show where one of the characters is a giant? If so, how is this character depicted in the story?

Teaching Suggestion: This Short Answer question invites students to consider the themes of The Victory of the Underdog, The Power of Friendship, and The Joy of Silliness and Imagination within the context of the novel’s motif of giants. In the realm of folklore, giants are often characterized as antagonistic creatures; however, Dahl departs from this presumption by developing the protagonist of the BFG (i.e., Big Friendly Giant) as someone who does not eat humans, unlike the rest of his kind in Giant Country. Students may use the first link below in their initial research for answering this question. While the second link is more of a teacher-facing resource, it may be beneficial to guide students through relevant portions of the text.

• This article from the American Museum of Natural History provides examples of tales of giants in mythology and folklore.