In 1929, at the age of 13, Roald Dahl attended Repton School, a prestigious boys’ boarding school in Derbyshire, England.
It was during his time at Repton that the Cadbury company sent sample chocolate bars to the school for the boys to taste and evaluate.
“It was a tradition that Cadbury’s, the great chocolate manufacturers, used to send us new chocolates in plain, white, cardboard boxes… two bars in a box… we would be asked to grade them and give our opinions on a special form that was included,” he has written.
This testing was part of Cadbury’s real-world product research at the time, and Dahl’s experience with it made a big impression on him. Roald LOVED chocolate and loved being part of something special and kind of secret. He even started dreaming about inventing a chocolate bar of his own that might win the approval of Mr. Cadbury himself.
But as much as he loved his role as a chocolate taster, he hated almost everything else about his role as a boarding school student: The beatings. The formality. The teachers who never listened. The total lack of power. The stifled creativity. He recalled what it felt like to want, more than anything, just to go home and described the unfairness of school life with a simmering tone of injustice.
Anger doesn’t always look like shouting or fists or red-hot rage.
It doesn’t always need to be loud.
Sometimes it comes out sideways. Sometimes it doesn’t come out at all.
And sometimes it’s doing a job you didn’t realize it had.
Once we start paying attention, we may notice anger showing up in different ways. Here are eight of them:
Anger as Confrontation
This kind of anger comes out as bluntness, interruption, a need to challenge or push
back. Our bodies are saying, “This doesn’t sit right.”
Anger as Control
This kind of anger kicks in when things feel chaotic or unpredictable. It might show up when we are needing to feel secure or safe.
Anger as Intensity
In this kind of anger we display big reactions, strong feelings, and nothing halfway.
Underneath it might be about things that matter deeply.
Anger as Protection
This kind of anger shows up when something we care about feels threatened.
Our time or our values or our families or our peace.
Anger as Certainty
This kind of anger steps in when there’s ambiguity, vulnerability, or doubt.
It says we’d rather be sure and sharp than wobbly and open.
Anger as Fuel
This kind of anger pushes us through resistance. It keeps us moving when we’re done being patient – with ourselves, with others, with a situation.
Anger as Pressure
This kind of anger builds when we’re carrying too much and no one seems to notice.
Especially if we think we’re not allowed to drop the ball.
Anger as Frustration
And this kind of anger comes up when something’s blocking us – a slow system, an unfair rule, something that won’t work, or a person who won’t follow through.
Most of us have a default “flavor” of anger.
Some of us (I’m looking at you Enneagram 8s!) switch between all eight.
Sometimes we don’t even recognize it as anger. It just looks like stress, exhaustion, or sharpness.
But once we name it, we get a little more say in what we do with it.
Decades after his boarding school experience, Roald Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — a story where kind children win, and adults get what’s coming. He turned his feelings about cruel grown-ups into smug, selfish, and mean-spirited characters. And his values of curiosity, imagination, and kindness into true heroes.
You could call it imagination.
You could call it genius.
You could also call it anger.
