The Twits

Collaborating and working with others forms connections and fosters a sense of community. The outcomes for characters in The Twits depend on whether they work in teams or strive individually for their goals. Through the animals’ accomplishments, as well as how the Twits refuse to work together, the book shows how teamwork makes goals easier to attain.

Teamwork helps us overcome obstacles. While the monkeys hate the Twits because the couple has mistreated them, they also hate the Twits for how they’ve treated the birds—baking them in a pie every week. The language barrier between the monkeys and birds has kept the monkeys from helping in the past, but as soon as the Roly-Poly Bird is available to translate, the monkeys take their opportunity to warn the birds so they don’t get captured and cooked. The first time the Roly-Poly Bird warns the other birds, the animals easily outsmart the Twits. This success allows the animals to evade the Twits a second time when the Roly-Poly Bird delivers the warning, “There’s sticky stuff now on the cage and the tree! If you land on either, you’ll never get free!” (46). As a result of teamwork, the animals avoid terrible fates, and these successes give the animals the confidence they need to take the Twits down for good.

Teamwork makes difficult tasks easier. In the latter portion of the book, the animals devise a plan to rid themselves of the Twits by turning them upside down. They use the Hugtight glue to stick everything in the Twits’ living room to the ceiling so the couple will think they’re standing the wrong way up. As the room has a wall-to-wall rug, heavy furniture, and many pictures and knick-knacks, this process is long and difficult, and it takes all the animals working together to complete the task before the Twits return home. The animals accomplish the many tasks—pulling free the rug, hoisting the furniture, and gluing down all the knickknacks—when they work together; teamwork is the key to their success. Without their combined strength and shared motivation, they wouldn’t have been successful.

Rejecting teamwork gets us in trouble. While the monkeys and birds work together to bring about positive outcomes for themselves, the Twits steadfastly refuse to work together, preferring to be at odds for the entire story. In the first portion of the book, this lack of teamwork is shown through the tricks they play on one another. Each pushes the other away, choosing to think up terrible plots on their own and then execute their tricks to their own fulfillment. This behavior leads to a cycle of retaliation through grander and grander tricks, and because they’re focused on tormenting each other and every other creature, they fail to realize how the animals work against them. The one time the Twits team up is when they agree to buy guns, but this cooperation is too little, too late. While they are gone, the animals exact their revenge. In the final chapters, when the Twits are stuck to the ceiling, they don’t try to help one another. Instead, they blame one another and struggle individually. While teamwork might not have saved them in this situation, they don’t even think to try working together, and their demise follows shortly.

When we work together, tasks are made lighter and everyone wins. Refusing to work together may bring about positive outcomes, but as shown by the animals, the collaboration of many workers and perspectives allows for solutions that a single person wouldn’t get on their own.