Should Wizard Hit Mommy — CBSE Class 12 English Vistas

Story Overview and Central Conflict

Jack, a tired father, invents a bedtime story every night for his daughter Jo. In this story, a little skunk named Roger Skunk is unhappy because he smells so bad that no other animals will play with him. He visits a wizard who changes his smell to roses. Roger Skunk is thrilled — until his mother scolds him fiercely for smelling like roses instead of a skunk, drags him back to the wizard, and forces the wizard to change him back to his original skunky smell. Jack ends the story here, satisfied. But Jo insists the wizard should have hit the mother with his magic wand for being so unkind. This small demand exposes a real fight between Jack and his wife Clare about what values children's stories should teach — obedience to parents versus the child's right to choose their own identity.

Key Characters and Story Elements

Jack

The narrator and father who tells Jo a bedtime story every night. He is emotionally invested in the story and identifies with Roger Skunk's desire for individuality; he resents his wife's interference and feels his creative authority as a storyteller is threatened.

Jo

Jack's four-year-old daughter who demands the same skunk story every night and keeps asking Jack to add that the wizard hit the mother, showing a child's simple sense of justice against unfair authority.

Clare

Jack's pregnant wife who believes the story should end with the mother happily accepting her son's new smell, since she feels children's stories must teach that mothers know best and family harmony matters.

Roger Skunk

The story-within-a-story protagonist who wants to smell like roses so other animals will play with him, representing a child's wish for social acceptance and self-expression.

The Wizard

A magical figure who grants Roger Skunk's wish and later, under pressure from the skunk's mother, reverses it — symbolising an outside authority caught between individual desire and parental control.

Roger Skunk's Mother

Insists her son must smell like a skunk again because 'skunks are supposed to smell that way,' representing rigid parental authority and resistance to a child's independent identity.

Analysing the Story's Layers Step by Step

1. Step 1: Identify the frame story vs the embedded story — The outer story is about Jack and Clare's real-life disagreement over bedtime storytelling. The inner story is the fictional tale of Roger Skunk. Always separate these two levels when answering — many students confuse Jack's real argument with Clare for Roger Skunk's plot.
2. Step 2: Trace the symbolism of smell — Roger Skunk's original skunk-smell represents his true, natural identity given by nature/family. The rose-smell represents an identity chosen for social acceptance. The mother forcing him back to his original smell symbolises parental insistence on conformity over the child's own choice.
3. Step 3: Understand why Jack refuses to change the ending — Jack, though he shows sympathy for Roger Skunk's wish, actually ends the story by supporting the mother's authority — he does not let the wizard hit her. This reveals Jack's own conflicted, perhaps patriarchal, view: he values parental control even while sympathising with a child's individuality.
4. Step 4: Understand Clare's counter-demand and its irony — Clare wants an even more mother-glorifying ending than Jack gives — she wants the skunk to LIKE smelling like a skunk. This is ironic because Jack believes his version is already 'fair' to the mother, yet Clare pushes it further, showing how differently men and women in the story view maternal authority and a child's autonomy.
5. Step 5: Connect to the title question — The title 'Should Wizard Hit Mommy' is literally Jo's daily question, but symbolically it asks: should authority figures ever be punished for suppressing a child's individuality? The story leaves this deliberately unresolved, forcing the reader to reflect rather than accept a simple moral.

Exam Tips and Common Mistakes

Many students wrongly summarise this story as 'a story about a skunk' and miss the real conflict between Jack and Clare — examiners specifically reward analysis of the frame narrative and the marital tension over parenting philosophy. Avoid stating that Jack changed the ending to please Jo; he actually refused to add the punishment she wanted, which is the story's key twist. Always mention BOTH layers (real family vs bedtime tale) in long-answer questions, and use exact details: Jo is four years old, Clare is pregnant, and the wizard uses a magic wand tap, not an actual physical blow, to change smells.

Practice Questions with Solutions

• Q: Why did Roger Skunk want to change his smell? What happened when the wizard granted his wish? A: Step 1: Roger Skunk smelled so bad that no other forest animals, including the other little animals, wanted to play or be near him, making him lonely and sad. Step 2: He visited the wise old wizard and asked to be made to smell like roses instead, so that others would accept him. Step 3: The wizard granted his wish, and immediately all the other animals became friendly, and Roger Skunk was overjoyed, running to show his mother. Final answer: Roger Skunk wanted acceptance from other animals, so he asked the wizard to change his skunk-smell to a rose-smell, which the wizard did, making him instantly popular and happy — until his mother's reaction changed everything.
• Q: How did Roger Skunk's mother react to his new smell, and what did she force the wizard to do? A: Step 1: Instead of being happy for her son, Roger Skunk's mother was furious that he no longer smelled like a skunk, insisting that skunks are meant to smell like skunks. Step 2: She marched him straight back to the wizard's house without listening to his happiness or reasoning. Step 3: She pressured the wizard, through sheer insistence and moral force, into reversing the spell so Roger Skunk smelled like a skunk again. Final answer: The mother rejected her son's new identity and forced the wizard to undo the magic, restoring Roger Skunk's original bad smell against his own wish.
• Q: Why does Jo repeatedly ask her father to make the wizard hit the mother? What does this reveal about her character? A: Step 1: Jo feels that the mother in the story behaved unfairly by forcing her son back to being unhappy just to satisfy her own idea of how a skunk 'should' smell. Step 2: In Jo's simple, black-and-white child's sense of justice, unfair adults deserve punishment, so she wants the wizard, who has magical power, to hit the mother for her unkindness. Step 3: Her repeated demand every night shows she is emotionally invested in fairness and cannot accept that the story ends without consequences for the mother's actions. Final answer: Jo's demand reveals a child's straightforward, uncomplicated moral sense that wrongdoing (the mother's harsh unfairness) must be punished, contrasting with the adults' more complicated, compromise-driven views of parental authority.
• Q: What does the disagreement between Jack and Clare about the story's ending reveal about their characters and their views on parenting? A: Step 1: Jack wants the story to end with the mother's authority intact but without her being violently punished — reflecting his sympathy for both the child's wish and the practical need for parental discipline. Step 2: Clare goes further, wanting Roger Skunk to actually enjoy smelling like a skunk again, showing she strongly believes children's stories should teach that mothers are always right and family harmony should always be restored happily. Step 3: Their argument reflects a deeper, real-life tension in their marriage about control, gender roles, and how children should be raised — Jack seems more sympathetic to individuality, Clare more focused on maternal authority and social conformity. Final answer: The disagreement shows Jack and Clare hold different philosophies of parenting — Jack leans toward respecting a child's independent identity while acknowledging authority, whereas Clare insists on unconditional endorsement of parental/maternal control, exposing tension in their own relationship.
• Q: Explain the symbolism of 'smell' in the story 'Should Wizard Hit Mommy'. A: Step 1: Smell in the story stands for identity — Roger Skunk's natural skunk-smell represents the identity given to him by birth and family, which is not something he chose. Step 2: The rose-smell he wishes for represents a self-chosen identity, adopted to gain social acceptance and happiness among peers. Step 3: The mother forcing him back to his original smell symbolises how parents and society often prioritise 'fitting the expected role' (a skunk must smell like a skunk) over an individual's happiness or self-expression. Final answer: Smell symbolises identity and the conflict between natural/assigned identity versus chosen/individual identity, mirroring the real theme of parental control versus a child's independence explored throughout the story.

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