Among adults, there is no general agreement as to the book's literary merits. Some opponents of the book consider it one of the most tasteless books ever written for children. Others, however, argue that the book should be read as a modern fairy tale, within a tradition in which the characters are stereotypes and violence and ruthless punishments are taken for granted.

Dahl does, in fact, draw on that tradition. He not only borrows the forms of violence that run through many fairy tales, but he uses the types of characters found in these tales. As Bruno Bettelheim points out in The Uses of Enchantment, fairy tale characters are "either good or bad, nothing in between."