Esio Trot

“He had loved her from his balcony for many years, but he was a very shy man and he had never been able to bring himself to give her even the smallest hint of his love.”

Mr. Hoppy may be naïve about Mrs. Silver’s awareness of his affection. Regardless, in his mind, she has no idea because he is too shy to do anything but watch her and make small talk. When Mrs. Silver accepts his marriage proposal, it’s hard to believe that she actually had no “hint” of his feelings.

“The distance between their balconies might not have been more than a few yards, but to Mr. Hoppy it seemed like a million miles.”

The gap between their balconies is small, but to Mr. Hoppy, it is a chasm. He knows what he wants, and he knows who he wants, but he lacks the courage to try. This is particularly stressful for him in his advanced age because he knows that his shyness is not a phase: It has defined his life, and his life is now in its late stages.

“The trouble with Mrs. Silver was that she gave all her love to somebody else, and that somebody was a small tortoise called Alfie. Every day, when Mr. Hoppy looked over his balcony and saw Mrs. Silver whispering endearments to Alfie and stroking his shell, he felt absurdly jealous.”

Mr. Hoppy’s shyness is comical, but it also costs him and Mrs. Silver years of their potential time together. He is in competition with a tortoise, but Alfie has no idea that they are rivals. Mr. Hoppy also seems to think that Mrs. Silver only has room in her heart for one love. She gives all her love to Alfie, and that excludes Mr. Hoppy.

“Oh, if only, he kept telling himself, if only he could do something tremendous like save her life or rescuing her from a gang of armed thugs, if only he could perform some great feat that would make him a hero in her eyes. If only…”

Mr. Hoppy is desperate to find a way to show Mrs. Silver how he feels about her. From his perspective, it would be easier to fight an armed mob for her than to talk to her. His shyness is so debilitating that he fantasizes about becoming a hero, rather than speaking with her. He becomes a hero to Mrs. Silver anyway, but through less dramatic means.

“He wouldn’t even have minded becoming a tortoise if it meant Mrs. Silver stroking his shell each morning and whispering endearments to him.”

Mr. Hoppy’s love for Mrs. Silver is so deep that he would welcome the chance to become a tortoise. He cannot conceive of telling her about his feelings or taking her on a date. Therefore, until his plan, he must be content with fantasies of being Alfie. He would surrender everything about his personhood just to be touched by her.

“It was at times like these that Mr. Hoppy wished more than ever that he could change places with Alfie and become a tortoise.”

When Mr. Hoppy watches Mrs. Silver touch Alfie, it makes him miserable and jealous. Besides his loneliness, there is no sign that Mr. Hoppy hates his life. However, he would gladly change places with a tortoise than continue without Mrs. Silver’s attention. He never seems to consider that perhaps he, Alfie, and Mrs. Silver could function together in harmony.

“And now, as he looked down at Mrs. Silver’s smiling face gazing up into his own, he thought for the thousandth time how pretty she was, how sweet and gentle and full of kindness, and his heart ached with love.”

Mr. Hoppy thinks that Mrs. Silver is beautiful, but he doesn’t only focus on her attractiveness. He pays attention to her gentleness, compassion, and kindness. However, it doesn’t occur to him that she might extend that kindness to him. Later, she immediately accepts his marriage proposal, indicating that she would have responded favorably to him at any time during their superficial talks. Instead, he continues to worship her from afar from a balcony, as if he is in a courtly love drama, wasting away with need.

“Try to think how miserable it must make him feel to be so titchy! Everyone wants to grow up.”

Mrs. Silver tries to explain why she wishes Alfie could grow more quickly. She thinks he must be unhappy being so small, particularly since he has 100 years to live. “Titchy” is British slang for tiny. There is no explanation as to why Mrs. Silver thinks being small would make Alfie miserable, but she unequivocally assumes he would be jealous of other larger tortoises.

“‘Tell me!’ cried Mrs. Silver. ‘I beg you to tell me, Mr. Hoppy! I’ll be your slave for life!’ When he heard the words your slave for life, a little shiver of excitement went through Mr. Hoppy.”

Mrs. Silver is irrationally excited about the thought of Alfie doubling in size. Although she uses the word “slave,” she is probably not thinking in terms of actual slavery. However, certain publishers rewrote parts of the text during a 2023 initiative and changed the word to something more sensitive to modern readers—“You will be my hero for life”—although many authors, publishers, actors, and other notable figures contested this.

“TORTOISE, TORTOISE,

GET BIGGER BIGGER!

COME ON TORTOISE,

GROW UP, PUFF UP,

SHOOT UP!

SPRING UP, BLOW

UP, SWELL UP!

GORGE! GUZZLE!

STUFF! GULP!”

This is the spell—the magic words—that Mr. Hoppy gives to Mrs. Silver to make Alfie grow. The words are originally written backward because Mr. Hoppy says that tortoises are very backward creatures. This quote shows the magic words in legible form. The magic words are absurd and shallow and don’t have a pleasing flow. Nevertheless, Mrs. Silver wants Alfie to grow badly enough that she’ll believe and try anything.

“Now what you have to do, Mrs. Silver, is hold Alfie up to your face and whisper these words to him three times a day, morning, noon, and night. Let me hear you practice them.”

Mr. Hoppy gives Mrs. Silver the rules for Alfie’s transformation. It is comical that he is too afraid to speak to her about his feelings but that he is the model of confidence when he outlines his absurd approach to helping Alfie. He is sure enough of himself to insist that she say the words out loud so that he can make sure she’s getting it right, but this assertiveness does not apply to any of their other conversations.

“Your slave for life, he kept repeating to himself. What bliss!”

Mr. Hoppy’s adoration for Mrs. Silver is not one of possessor and possessed. There is no sign that Mr. Hoppy wants to dominate her, isolate her, or limit her options, let alone to subject her to slavery. It is as likely that he is imagining an end to loneliness—for life—as he is to be fantasizing about controlling Mrs. Silver. He also wants to give her what would make her happy, but by circuitous means.

“To you and me there is not much difference between one tortoise and another. They differ only in their size and in the colour of their shells. Alfie had a darkish shell, so Mr. Hoppy chose only the darker-shelled tortoises for his great collection.”

Mr. Hoppy doesn’t overly concern himself with a perfect match for the color of Alfie’s shell. He thinks that, ultimately, Mrs. Silver notices Alfie’s color less than his size and assumes the reader would as well. The description of his ‘great collection’ grants his pursuit of Mrs. Silver the notion of an epic quest that requires heroic cunning and audacity.

“When he had finished, Mr. Hoppy, in his enthusiasm, had bought on less than one hundred and forty tortoises and he carried them home in baskets, ten or fifteen at a trip. He had to make quite a lot of trips and he was quite exhausted at the end of it, but it was worth it. Boy, was it worth it!”

After visiting every pet shop, Mr. Hoppy begins the hard physical work of transporting 140 tortoises to his home, which he has repurposed for his plan. He sacrifices his energy, his living room, and what must be an appreciable sum of money, all to accomplish what could have been done by having the courage to speak to Mrs. Silver. But he does not complain and knows the struggle is worth it.

“What he had to do now was to make something that would reach down from his own balcony to Mrs. Silver’s balcony and pick up a tortoise. This was not difficult for a mechanic like Mr. Hoppy.”

Mr. Hoppy is retired, but he retains enough of his mechanical skills to devise what he calls the tortoise catcher. He is clever enough to design and fabricate a tool to catch Alfie, but Mr. Hoppy cannot apply that same confidence to his relationship with Mrs. Silver. He is more comfortable designing a tortoise catcher than designing a conversation that might reveal his feelings.

“Would she see any difference between the new tortoise and Alfie? It was going to be a tense moment.”

At the moment of truth, Mr. Hoppy waits to see whether Mrs. Silver will discover his trickery. Some part of him is aware that his plan could backfire. He could potentially lose his congenial, if platonic, relationship with Mrs. Silver if she learns what he has done. Further, Mr. Hoppy has done more than pretend that one tortoise is another. He has taken away Alfie, who has been her companion for years, even if she doesn’t notice.

“If a creature grows slowly enough—I mean very very slowly indeed—then you’ll never notice that it has grown at all, especially if you see it every day.”

Mr. Hoppy’s plan relies on the fact that no one sees growth as it happens. Mrs. Silver sees Alfie every day and has done so for years. However, she relies on the scale to tell her whether he has grown or not. Mr. Hoppy takes advantage of Mrs. Silver’s impatience for his plan. He has waited for Mrs. Silver for years, and a few weeks of swapping tortoises will not bother him.

“It’s the same with children. They are actually growing taller every week, but their mothers never notice it until they grow out of their clothes.”

Mr. Hoppy knows that the imperceptible growth of the tortoise is similar to that of children. This is why parents feel as if their children grow into adults overnight. It is how adults suddenly find that they are middle-aged, with children of their own. It is also how those adults find that they are suddenly old, in the final years of their life, all without noticing the small changes.

“It was amazing that Mrs. Silver had hardly noticed anything at all during the great operation. Only once had she looked up and said, ‘you know, Mr. Hoppy, I do believe he’s getting a bit bigger. What do you think?’”

Despite the earlier quotes about the imperceptibility of incremental change, it is still surprising that Mrs. Silver doesn’t realize that “Alfie” is now twice the size he was at the start of Mr. Hoppy’s plan. He has not grown a “bit” bigger: This would be as if Mr. Hoppy were suddenly twice as tall as an average human being but she did not notice until that moment.

“‘Oh, you great big wonderful boy! Just look what clever Mr. Hoppy has done for you!’ Mr. Hoppy suddenly felt very brave.”

When Mr. Hoppy hears Mrs. Silver praising him, it grants him instant courage. His conversations with Mrs. Silver have all been superficial prior to the experiment with Alfie. Now that she is complimenting him, Mr. Hoppy is invigorated. In fact, he is feeling so brave that he is about to propose marriage. She probably would have encouraged him all along, if Mrs. Silver had known what he wanted.

“That’s simple…Change the magic words. Instead of telling him to get bigger and bigger, tell him to get a bit smaller. But in tortoise language of course.”

Mr. Poppy’s plan doesn’t backfire, but it has one unexpected hiccup. The largest iteration of Alfie can’t get back into the house on Mrs. Silver’s balcony. He simply reverses the deception and shrinks Alfie down one size, rather than admitting what he has done. Mrs. Silver accepts the new plan as easily as she accepted the first one.

“This is it! he whispered to himself under his breath. The greatest moment of my life is coming up now! I mustn’t bish it. I mustn’t bosh it! I must keep very calm!”

As the moment of his triumph nears, Mr. Hoppy is giddy. Even his internal monologue is filled with singsong wordplay, which is one of Dahl’s characteristics as a writer. Now that Mr. Hoppy has pulled off the trick with the tortoises, he has only to stay calm in order to make his secret love a public one.

“That smile of hers, so warm and friendly, suddenly gave him the courage he needed, and he said ‘Mrs. Silver, please, will you marry me?’

‘Why, Mr. Hoppy!’ she cried, ‘I didn’t think you’d ever get round to asking me! Of course I’ll marry you!’”

Once his plan succeeds, Mr. Hoppy asks Mrs. Silver to marry him. Not only does she say yes, but she also agrees as if her acceptance should be self-evident. She also implies that she would have said yes before now, as if she were expecting it at any time. Also, in light of previous quotes, it is worth nothing that she accepts his marriage proposal; she doesn’t offer herself as his “slave” for life.