Zinnia Wormwood is the wife of Harry Wormwood and the mother of Michael and Matilda. She is the secondary antagonist of the novel, but serves as the tertiary antagonist in the film.
About Zinnia[]
Mrs. Zinnia Wormwood is the mother of Michael and Matilda Wormwood and the wife of Harry Wormwood. Mrs. Wormwood plays Bingo five times a week. She’s more concerned about looks than getting an education. However, despite this, Mrs. Wormwood has a soft spot for Matilda. In the movie, Mrs. Wormwood's first name is Zinnia. In the musical, Mrs. Wormwood loves ballroom dancing. She is a very large woman in the book, but in the movie, she is quite skinny. At the end she goes to Guam with her husband and Michael never to be seen again. In the musical, her dance instructor, Rudolpho goes with her, Harry and Michael to Guam.
Biography[]
When Matilda was young, she would leave every day to play Bingo, leaving Matilda alone in the house, leaving only an unprepared meal for her if she got hungry, showing her to be a neglectful parent like her husband. It is also shown she uses hair dye since Matilda used it to punish her father by putting some oil in his hair, which resulted in him looking absolutely ridiculous.
One day, she revealed she won by hitting the "Double Bingo" at bingo, and used it to take her family out to lunch at a fancy restaurant, which was the same day Harry took Matilda and Mikey to his workshop showing how he ripped people off. This caused Matilda to punish him by putting superglue in his hat, which, in turn, stuck to his head; as a result, Harry couldn't take his hat off at the restaurant, despite Zinnia's complaints.
At the end, she shows she has a small moment of humanity when she confesses she never understood Matilda before signing the adoption papers; in the movie she seemed hurt that Matilda wanted Miss Honey to adopt her, whereas in the book, she and her husband drop Matilda like a rock without a second thought.
Personality[]
Much like her husband, and son, Mrs. Wormwood is obsessed with wealth and television, actively preferring to eat dinner while watching TV, instead of following Matilda's suggestion of eating at the table. She also prizes materialism and beauty above all else, as is seen in her generally fashionable appearance, and by her statement towards Miss Honey: You chose books; I chose looks. She is shown to prefer maintaining a social life over the raising of her children. In the early days of Matilda's life, Mrs. Wormwood often left her at home alone, while she went to play bingo, and, in the movie, is angry at Mr. Wormwood for chasing away two speedboat salesmen she was talking to (although both are unaware that they were secretly F.B.I. field agents).
Despite this, her personae in the movie portrays a considerably more human, maternal aspect to her, as she is shown to genuinely care for Matilda - to some degree. She willingly invites the whole family to a meal at a high-class café, expresses concern that 'there is something wrong with that girl' (since she is still oblivious as to how she, Mr. Wormwood and Michael behave towards Matilda), and is genuinely saddened by Matilda's decision to stay with Miss Honey. As they leave, Mrs. Wormwood tells Matilda that she was the only daughter she had ever had, and that they never had time to understand her.
Gallery[]
Matilda[]
Matilda the Musical[]
Trivia[]
- The name "Zinnia" means flower in Latin.
- Though Zinnia shares similarities from Cinderella's stepmother in most adaptations of the fairy tale, Zinnia is never as cruel to Matilda as the stepmother was to Cinderella.